Claret Sky
by Sunnepho
Summary: Six years after the events of Revenant Wings, manufacted nethicite has gradually lost its power, and the technology to make it anew is long gone. When Balthier steals the last piece from the Archadian Empire, they stop at nothing to bring him in. Bal/Vaan.
1. That which is catalyst

**Claret Sky**  
>Sunnepho<br>Bal/Vaan  
>AngstAdventure/Romance

This is an experimental style for me as well as my first M-rated (I take that to mean explicit to an extent, but not fully) slash, so I am nervous of the fact it has not been beta'd. But hey, what is the internet for but experiment? I just hope it works.

Disclaimer: All characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being made from the writing of this fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: Six years after the events of Revenant Wings, manufacted nethicite has gradually lost its power, and the technology to make it anew is long gone. When Balthier steals the last piece from the Archadian Empire, they stop at nothing to bring him in.

* * *

><p>1. <strong>That which is catalyst<strong>

It is blood red, the nethicite, and it shows warps in the way light travels through it. It must have been one of the first to have been manufacted, and it was clearly intended to be decorative, given the heavy gold disc it is set in, carved with an artist's interpretation of the Occuria, godly faces twisted in piety.

Balthier crosses his arms, eyeing it wearily.

He has searched through what feels like miles of underground treasury to find this. There is dust firmly ground into his shirt sleeve, his shoulder feels the strain of his gun's recoil, and now the blasted thing is set into the wall in the middle of glittering gold carvings.

Balthier scans about, but there are no visible signs of traps. Lifting his hand, he touches the nethicite, and it falls from the wall easily.

It is heavy in his palm, and gold lines seem to have faded somewhat.

Balthier hesitates for a moment further, and he walks away.

* * *

><p>He is nursing a goblet of Bhujerban Madhu he has purchased with the gil from the monster spoils when the Archadian soldiers stop in front of his table and try to arrest him. Balthier arches an eyebrow, leaning back in his seat. He is acutely aware of the other patrons in the Cloudborne straining their ears in the sudden silence.<p>

"Can't say I know what you're referring to," Balthier says, quite innocently.

"An eyewitness account puts you at the site of the theft. The stolen item is property of the Archadian Empire, and you would do well to return it now. Retrieve it from whatever fence you have sold it to, and your sentence may be lightened."

Balthier scoffs. "Who would be willing to buy nethicite in this age?" There are murmurs at the mention of the material, and what Balthier could see of the first soldier's face has gone purple.

"Then you do have it!"

"Ah," Balthier says, a corner of his lips curving up, "would that I did. Imagine what a pretty penny it _would_ sell for. Unfortunately, I do not."

The soldier reaches for his sword, stepping forward angrily, and Balthier brings his knee up sharply. The table overturns in a thunderous crash of breaking pottery, sending shards and spray flying in every direction. Amongst the shouts and furious fumbling, Balthier slips out the back door.

* * *

><p>The Strahl is distinctive, he knows, and so he hides her in the shadows around the Tomb of Raithwall. Manufacted nethicite has all but vanished over the years, and it is only with consummate skill that Balthier is able to coast through the cloying Mist and skid to a halt in the sand. He will regret this later, when he retrieves his ship, he knows, but for now, she will be difficult to find in the Jagd.<p>

He fills a small travel sack and leaves the Strahl on foot.

It is on the second night, when he is covered from head to toe to protect himself from the desert sands and the biting cold, that he wakes and feels the cold edge against his throat.

Silently, he looks up at the armoured figure, all blinding brightness and black shadows under the moonlight.

He thinks that the Empire must really need that last piece of nethicite if it has sent a Judge after him.

"You will come with me to Archades to stand trial," the Judge says, and his voice echoes tinnily behind his helm.

Balthier's forehead furrows. The voice is familiar, teasing at the edges of his memory. Perhaps it is someone he once interacted with, when he was in a similar line of work.

"It is the middle of the night," he protests.

The sword digs just a bit deeper, and Balthier ignores the tickling of a drop of blood welling out from under his skin.

The Judge steps back after a moment. "I'll wait until dawn." He sits, resting the blade of his sword on the ground in front of his legs.

Balthier does not sleep for the rest of the night.

The sky is red overhead when Balthier feels the prod to his side, and he pulls himself to his feet.

He sees the Imdugud first. It screeches shrilly and flaps its bat-like wings, diving down at Balthier.

Balthier reaches to his side and bites back a curse when he feels nothing. He has forgotten the Judge taking his weapons and magick. He steps back, preparing to dodge the monster.

The Judge steps forward, the glow of Telekinensis outlining his form.

It is the way the Judge wields his sword, the odd dip to his sword arm that no manner of training could beat out of him, that Balthier finally recognizes. The Imdugud spirals down to the ground, dead before it lands, and Balthier's eyes widen and his jaw slackens.

"Vaan," he says.

* * *

><p>Balthier looks over his shoulder often at the armoured figure following him, close enough to stop him if he ran, but far enough to keep his hands in full view. The helmet impedes the Judge's vision, and after two Alraune manage to sneak up close enough for their chitters to be heard before the Judge notices, he removes it.<p>

The blond hair still burns white under the sun, and it is limp with sweat at the temples, but that quickly dries, and the wisps flutter softly in the desert wind.

It has been six years since they parted company on Lemurés, and Vaan is taller and broader, but his chin is still sharp and his skin still smooth.

It is his eyes that are different, and it is his eyes that Balthier turns to look at.

They are hard and sharp like flint, flickering over him and the landscape ceaselessly. They do not change when several Yensa sidle around the towering boulders scattered about and charge them, and Vaan steps forward and dispatches them with cold efficiency.

Vaan flicks the blood from his sword and sheathes it before motioning to Balthier to move on.

Balthier feels his curiosity eating at him.

* * *

><p>Vaan sets a blistering pace, and they are well into the Ogir-Yensa sandsea by nightfall. Balthier's steps are lagging by the time Vaan stops them. His armoured boots clank against the metal walkways of the abandoned oil rig, and he walks a ring around a sand-crusted structure before tossing Balthier's sack into a shielded recess that was once an entryway.<p>

He shares dry rations with Balthier, and he stares out over the rolling sands below.

Balthier cannot take it anymore.

"What has happened to you?" he asks.

Vaan looks at him out of a corner of his eye, but he does not respond.

"I know we lost touch, but what could have possibly possessed you to become a Judge? What happened to your airship? Where is Penelo—"

"Be quiet."

Balthier falls silent, affronted by the curt tone. He frowns, because there is something bleak in Vaan's level voice, and he tries again. "Vaan..."

Vaan stands, and he walks away.

* * *

><p>It is a clear, bright day, and the wall between them is thick as ever. Balthier resigns himself to another day of mindless trekking. He feels too light, too vulnerable, without his guns, and it is perhaps because of it that he is preoccupied. Vaan is worrisomely strong, now, and he has barrelled through everything that attempted to block their path with ease.<p>

Vaan's gloved hand closes tightly around his wrist, and he feels his bones grind.

Wincing, he looks up, and the Salamand Entite drifts by, its heat baking his face.

Balthier does not move, and he watches as it pauses, almost as if it is looking back at them, the intruders on its domain. It flickers, and it moves back the way it came.

The sense of flowing power makes Balthier's hairs stand on end, and he glances at Vaan.

A hot breeze on his cheek signifies the Entite passing, and a red glow bathes Vaan's face.

He is watching Salamand with open eyes and slightly parted lips, and Balthier finds himself staring.

* * *

><p>The Westersand is overrun with Wolves, and Vaan is surrounded. He moves like a dance, and there is not a single wasted motion. Balthier watches, and his hands itch.<p>

He sees the Sleipnir moments before it rears up and strikes out with its hooves, and he throws himself to a side. A hoof clips him in the ribs, and he grunts. There is a sticky feeling. It has broken skin. He rolls, dodging pounding hooves and piercing spikes, and he swings his leg around hard. It catches the beast's hind leg and snaps it with a loud crack. The Sleipnir screams shrilly and thumps to the ground, and Balthier feels less than dignified as he drags himself up and away from its thrashing.

Vaan's sword stabs through its neck, and Vaan is standing over it, breathing harshly.

Balthier nods his thanks. He wonders if he can convince Vaan to return his weapons because of this.

Vaan approaches him, and Balthier thinks again that he looks rather imposing in that armour. There are pieces of beast fur clumping to his sword, and Balthier wrinkles his nose. Vaan looks down at the blade and stabs it down into the ground, leaving it standing behind as he comes closer. His hand raises, and Balthier tenses, but he only pulls up Balthier's vest.

He lets Vaan prod at the gash in his side, and he lets out a long breath at the tingling sensation of healing magick washing over him.

He thinks that this is not how Judges treat their prisoners, and he smiles.

* * *

><p>Vaan goes around Rabanastre without stopping.<p>

* * *

><p>Vaan wears the helmet in Nalbina, and Balthier sees the bows and the avoidance, intermingled with looks of venomous hatred. He wonders at this. The peace has been quiet, subdued of late, but the calm carries with it the sense of pressure, as if it keens to boil over.<p>

When the man in the tattered red cloak roars and rushes toward Vaan with a blade raised high above his head, Balthier watches Vaan step into the charge and run his sword straight through his belly. There is an ugly, choking noise, and the man sags.

It is the fact that no one turns around that makes Balthier feel sick.

There is blood speckled over his boots and people are walking around the corpse, and Balthier stops moving.

He frowns, looking into the blank mask. "He was not a threat," he says, admonishes, and he receives a swift cuff to the head that leaves his vision swinging and flickering.

Balthier's foot slips a bit, but he lets the Judge push him forward.

He remembers wide, sky pale eyes and an earnest voice.

* * *

><p>His is not the only mouth in which the events of Nalbina left a foul taste, Balthier realizes. He taps his fingers over his crossed arms and watches Vaan pursue a fleeing, snarling Alpha Worgen with an odd viciousness. Vaan has been leaving him for longer periods of time and moving farther away during his hunts, and Balthier contemplates vanishing.<p>

Then he remembers the speed at which Vaan found him across the breadth of two continents, and it is not the first time that he rues teaching nearly all of his tricks to another.

The pertinent question is "why." Not "why Vaan," because Balthier knows full well, after what he has seen in past days, that Vaan is one of the only humes capable of subduing him, and Vaan chases in a dogged way that puts terriers to shame. No, Balthier wants to know why. Why Archades, why the dead silence, dead eyes.

He tries. He asks obliquely, he reminisces, he taunts. It is after Vaan splits his lip wide open when he mentions Penelo again that Vaan retreats even further, as if exhausted by his sudden display of temper.

The mask is not impenetrable, after all. Balthier licks at the crimson staining his mouth and thinks about the flicker in Vaan's eyes, and the blood tastes sweet.

* * *

><p>There is a slave ship at the Phon Coast.<p>

The clear skies and white sands seem an unwieldy backdrop to the sight of unwashed men dragging a small girl toward the ship by her hair, and the hiss of waves sliding unsuited to the screams.

Balthier feels his hands clench, and he moves toward the ship, but he is knocked aside by Vaan's armoured bulk. He watches Vaan slam into a slave trader and send him flying into the water before he draws his sword and near cleaves another man in half. Balthier gently tugs the girl out of range of the splatters, and he follows Vaan with his eyes. This is a rage he has never before seen.

Vaan moves so quickly and slashes so hard that the air sings.

Then, the bodies are lying still and the sand is drenched red. The other prisoners are freed, and they bow and cower to the Judge's armour, but Vaan ignores them.

The girl tugs on Vaan's gloved fingers, and he jerks, but she is crying, her eyes swollen shut, and she does not care. She cries for her sister and says the slaves are taken to the Lhusu Mines.

Vaan does not hesitate before entering the ship, and Balthier helps when he begins flicking switches and powering the skystones. He lets Vaan steer, relief light on his chest. At the core, some things do not change, and Balthier is inordinately glad for the familiarity.

They are standing at the entrance to the mines when Vaan looks back at him sharply, thinks for a moment, and hands him his gun.

* * *

><p>They fly to the Imperial City of Archades, after, and Balthier feels the disappointment keenly.<p>

There is a brief delay when Archadian airships challenge the stolen slave ship, but Vaan stalks onto the commander's ship with a thunderous expression, and by the end, the soldiers are grovelling.

The delay costs them, though, and when they reach Archades, the palace gates are closed. Balthier can see Vaan deliberating forcing his way through, and so he complains loudly.

Vaan silences him, but he acquiesces, and he leads the way to a waiting taxi.

They find a small hotel, and the two beds lie side by side, smelling of fresh linen.

Balthier watches Vaan remove his helmet and his armour, piece by shining piece, and he knows he cannot let this lie.

"Vaan," he says, and he pauses.

Vaan glances at him, and the lamplight darkens his hair and his eyes until he is swallowed by a sea of dusk.

"Tell me what happened."

Vaan's jaw ripples, and Balthier finds his eyes drawn to the blond stubble on his cheek. It is darker than his hair, but not by much, and Balthier's stomach clenches as he thinks about pale hair against dusty skin.

"You are clearly caught in a situation beyond your control," Balthier says firmly. "If you tell me, I would more likely than not be able to help you."

Vaan looks away, and Balthier is frustrated. He leans over, planting his hands on the soft mattress on either side of hips that look strangely slim without the armour, and he sighs. "Vaan..."

He sees Vaan's eyes under the blond fringe. They dart to his throat, bare now that he has removed his vest and cravat, and they widen just a touch.

Balthier breathes in Vaan's warm, dusty scent, and he moves closer. The ghosts of breaths whispering over his collarbone increase in speed. He thinks he can use this, but the slamming of his heart against his ribs belies the calculating thoughts, and he suppresses a shiver.

He aches to touch, and it is terrifying.

Balthier sees Vaan gnawing on the inside of his lip, and he sees the minute trembles and straining energy. He feels... he does not know how he feels, but he presses dry lips against Vaan's cheekbone, anyway.

The skin is soft.

"You will not tell me, then?" Balthier drags his mouth down the long lines of Vaan's throat, and he pauses on the hammering pulse. "In that case..."

Vaan brings up a hand and pushes against his chest, but Balthier snatches it and presses it tightly against the bed.

"At least allow me to do this for you."

Balthier sheds their clothing with quick, sure hands. He will not let Vaan think his way out. He will not give Vaan enough time to panic. He closes his eyes and concentrates on the hot, slow glide of his tongue against Vaan's.

His hands skim over hard angles of muscles, and he follows the trail with an open mouth.

Vaan is leaking, a dribble glistening over his taut stomach, and when Balthier licks it away, Vaan arches high off the bed. The skin is hot and musky under his mouth, and Vaan makes a noise in the back of his throat.

He looks up to see tightly shut eyes and clenching muscles. He rears up, Vaan's cock slapping thickly against his belly, and then his length is crushed against Vaan's, and the kiss is bruising, pressing Vaan hard down into the mattress.

Vaan strains up against him, and Balthier bites down on a full lip before soothing it with a lick. He presses two fingers into Vaan's mouth, and it is burning heat and wet swirls of tongue.

Vaan gasps when he pulls his hand away slickly, and he distracts him with a nip to the throat. Balthier presses into another kiss, and he reaches down and begins to prepare himself. Vaan's hips are rocking against his, and the sensation, coupled with hasty fingers and rough tongues, is almost too much to bear.

Soon, he shifts and sits up, bringing his legs up in front of him, and he presses down on the slick head of Vaan's cock until it slides deep inside him. It is fast and raw, and it brings stinging tears to Balthier's eyes, but he looks down into Vaan's wide-eyed gaze and shudders. Vaan's lips part, swollen and red.

"Balthier..."

* * *

><p>The silence is stony the next morning, when Balthier wakes to find himself draped stickily across Vaan's broad chest. The room is disgustingly hot behind closed shutters.<p>

Vaan pushes Balthier off and scrapes dried crust from his stomach before dressing. The helmet drops and latches with a click rife with finality.

The gloved hand wrapped around Balthier's bicep is bruising, and he lets himself be dragged away. At the gates, Vaan shoves him forward and signs off tersely, leaving him in the care of calculating stares, and Balthier sighs.

* * *

><p>The situation quickly becomes clear once Balthier is locked away.<p>

The interrogators do not find the nethicite on his person and cannot force its location from his smirking lips, and Balthier is shoved back into the prison, squinting through newly blackened eyes.

On the third day, he is scratching at the floor of his cell idly and trying hard not to think about sunlight and pale skies when there is a flurry of movement and commotion.

Rich robes are dragging in the dust, followed by pleading soldiers and servants, and Balthier looks up at the Emperor through the bars.

Larsa has grown tall, he thinks. He does not see the Emperor up close in his line of work.

Larsa looks furious, and he speaks sharply, roughly to the soldiers trying to explain that Balthier has stolen an item of great value and has been brought to justice. He orders the door opened, and his expression darkens further when the guards, cowering and stammering, say that the Council does not allow this.

There is a glimpse of white-blond braids, and Balthier swings to his feet.

Penelo stands behind Larsa, hands folded demurely and eyes lowered to the ground. Balthier tilts his head and tries to catch her eye, but she looks blankly through him before turning to Larsa, docile and slow.

Balthier recognizes the symptoms of a cocktail of spells, and he cannot decipher them all. A hard knot forms in his stomach.

Larsa browbeats the guards until slowly, reluctantly, they unlock the cell door and stand back.

They stink of fear, Balthier thinks, and it is not directed at Larsa.

"I wish only to speak to Ffamran Mied Bunansa," Larsa says archly, and he gestures to Balthier to precede him.

They exit the prison into the scarlet light of dusk, and Balthier blinks at the sky. They walk, and Larsa's expression sends servants scurrying out of their path. They walk until they are in a secluded area and the light is ebbing quickly, and Larsa does not turn his head, but he speaks urgently, lowly.

"I will take you to a secret exit, Balthier. You must leave now, before it is too late, and you must take Penelo with you."

"Too late for what?"

Larsa glances at him, anger furrowing his brow. "The Council do not know I have freed you, yet, but once they find out..."

"Why does the Council hold such sway over the empire that even the emperor must sneak and lie?" Balthier asks sharply. "Where is Basch?"

"Basch is dead," Larsa says quietly. "He has been dead for four years."

The cold lump in the pit of Balthier's stomach grows. "You mean to tell me that the Council has kept secret the death of one of its Judges Magister for four years?"

"The Council members from my father's time have deep pockets. They began slowly, but they have replaced every man loyal to the emperor with those loyal to the empire. I was foolish not to realize until I could no longer control them."

"And Vaan? What of Vaan?"

Larsa gives him a look filled with leaden sadness. "When they recruited Vaan, they brought Kytes, Filo, Tomaj, and Penelo here. I do not know what manner of spell they were placed under, but they barely talked. They were like sheep, following a shepherd in his every step."

"Where are the others now?"

"Vaan was not... amenable to his orders. Not at first. Even with his friends held hostage, he rebelled. He tried to free them. Tomaj died first."

The chill in his blood swallows him, and Balthier feels his hands twitch. "Mysterious circumstances, I presume," he says, and it is only a whisper.

"Yes. Vaan came to me, and he raged of his impotence."

"And after?"

Larsa drifts darkened eyes to Penelo, who is gently humming to herself. "Penelo is the only one left," Larsa says. He pauses, and the next words come in a rush. "You did not see Vaan's eyes, Balthier. He died, inside, piece by piece."

Balthier shakes his head. "I did. Vaan is the one who arrested me."

Larsa frowns at this. "For a mere trinket? Balthier, why?"

"The rightful owner petitioned me, and I returned it to her." Balthier shrugs. "No good deed, indeed."

"You are not suicidal, are you?"

"Does it seem that way to you?"

If Larsa notices his evasion, he does not show it. Balthier puts the matter to a side. Even he does not know the source of his melancholy lately, though—Vaan's red, bitten lips swim to his mind's eye—he is beginning to understand.

Balthier sees a high wall set with a small gate, and his pace quickens with Larsa's.

There are shouts, then, and bright flashes of lit torches, and they are surrounded. Larsa steps in front of him and argues bitterly with an old boar of a man in opulent robes, and crossbows are levelled at Balthier's chest.

He can see the fingers tightening on the triggers, and he eases Penelo behind him. He wonders if he can push Penelo down to the ground quickly enough, and then there are screams, and fire roars through the soldiers as if their torches had twisted out of control.

"Balthier!"

An airbike hovers before him, and he feels his breath escape him at the relief. He gathers Penelo up with one arm, and he reaches out with the other to take Fran's hand.

* * *

><p>Fran has teased apart the myriad of status effects cast upon Penelo, and she has removed them, spell by spell. The endeavour exhausts Penelo, and she sleeps for days.<p>

When Fran catches Balthier hovering, she berates him, and he responds peevishly that she took her time rescuing him. Fran gives him a long, shrivelling look, and tells him that it took her and Nono five days to repair and pull the Strahl out of the ditch he had so kindly left it in, in Jagd Yensa.

Penelo has not woken in the evening of the third day, and Balthier steps out into fresher air.

The Strahl is well-hidden at the very edge of the Feywood, but when Balthier sees the armoured figure and the bared sword, he is not surprised.

"Have they sent you to capture me?" Balthier asks.

"No," Vaan says. He crouches, sword at ready. "They have sent me to kill you."

"And you would kill me? Based on the orders of a corrupt government?"

Vaan does not respond.

Balthier raises his hands and watches Vaan calmly. It is possible that he really will die here, he thinks, and the idea is curiously detached and removed. He wonders if he is to explain himself.

Vaan shifts, raising his blade, and it is blood red in the light.

There is a wordless cry, and Penelo dashes by Balthier. She thumps into Vaan's chest and wraps her arms around his shoulders.

"Vaan!"

She is crying, and Balthier cannot quite make out the words, but Fran has told him that she is likely to remember all that happened during her time in captivity. The horror of the idea is difficult to stomach.

"Vaan! Oh, _Vaan_..." she says over and over, and Vaan stands, frozen and shaking.

The sword drops from loose fingers.

Vaan sags as if his strings are cut, and he sinks to his knees, Penelo's tears tapping still at his heavy breastplate.

* * *

><p>Balthier is waiting outside the door when Vaan exits. The armour is gone, leaving a soft white shirt and tight brown leather strapped to slim hips. He has shaved.<p>

Balthier thinks Vaan has never looked more like a sky pirate.

Vaan draws in a quick breath when he sees him. He stares for a moment, sky-coloured eyes drifting down Balthier's body.

"We must save Larsa," Balthier says. He has thought about this for a time. "We must free Archades."

Vaan's smile is crooked and rusted.

* * *

><p>TBC - I've decided to see this plot through.<p> 


	2. That which is broken

2. **That which is broken**

Balthier/Vaan - post canon

Disclaimers still apply.

The previous chapter was written fully intended as a oneshot.

The disjointed vignette style is difficult for me. But I am almost finished another playthrough of FFXII, and the plot bunny just keeps kicking me. There's so much more that can be done with this idea, it says, bashing me over the head. So here I go. Updates will hopefully be frequent, but all rather short. A bit lighter on the angst, here, I'm hoping. Short transitional chapter time.

* * *

><p>Penelo is quiet sometimes, and Vaan sits beside her, holding her hand.<p>

Balthier feels as if he is intruding, a stranger in his own airship. The Strahl does not have much cabin space, being designed for speed and combat, and what space is not taken up by weaponry is occupied by the mechanisms controlling the wings. When Balthier sees the two pale heads gazing silently out at the clouds below, he shuts himself in the cockpit.

He shrugs when Fran tells him that his face is betraying his emotions once more. He feels as if she grooms him sometimes, just as she did when he was sixteen and alone for the first time.

They must talk when he is not present, because when the door clicks open and Vaan is standing outside as if hesitant to enter and he murmurs his thanks, Balthier can only look up in surprise.

Fran tilts her head gracefully, and she slips away in such a way that Vaan must edge into the cockpit to let her pass. The door swings shut behind her.

Balthier turns to look out at the sky, and Vaan's presence is warm against his back. He waits, listening to the soft purr of the engines.

"I'm sorry," Vaan says. "About before, when—"

"Never you mind that," Balthier says impatiently.

Vaan is quiet, and Balthier cannot decide if he is glad that the man has learned to hold his tongue or if he misses the chatter.

"Where was Fran?" Vaan asks suddenly, and it is the coarseness in the voice that makes Balthier look up sharply.

"She received a summons from the Viera."

"Oh." There is something tentative in Vaan's eyes and something awkward in his stance.

Balthier sighs. "Mjrn has decided her path and begun her training, and she is to become Elder of Eruyt village in the future. She hopes to bring the Viera closer to the rest of Ivalice, and she wishes to make amends between Fran and the Wood as her first step."

"And their Law?"

"Mjrn makes passionate appeals, don't you remember?" Balthier grins. "Fran believes that if anyone is able to sway the Wood, it will be Mjrn." He waves a hand, his rings glittering under sunlight. "As well, the Strahl's main skystone was in need of maintenance, and she took it with her and met with Margrace near the Rozarrian border."

"Is that why I found the Strahl crashed in Jagd Yensa?"

Balthier scowls. "Only a fool would search a Jagd for an airship."

"A fool. Maybe," Vaan says quietly. He straightens from where he has been leaning against the wall. "Mjrn is going to be village Elder," he says. "I guess I shouldn't ask how old she must be to take the position."

Balthier knows he is staring at Vaan incredulously, but Vaan is unreadable. He sees the strain to his jaw before the pale eyes flick away.

Vaan nods his head, turning to leave, and his fingers brush lightly over Balthier's shoulder.

Balthier watches the door even after it has shut behind Vaan.

* * *

><p>Balthier eyes the stubborn set to Vaan's jaw and the tightly crossed arms, and he sighs and counsels patience.<p>

"You do not know what those men are capable of," Vaan says, his voice sharp and hard. Balthier thinks of the edges and lines of the Judge's armour.

"No," Balthier says, "but I know Larsa, and he is neither stupid nor helpless."

"Rushing will do naught but endanger Larsa." Fran is looking on from where she stands with Penelo.

"There," Balthier says, "you would do well to listen to the lady." He nods to Fran.

"Vaan..." Penelo tugs on a white sleeve. "Maybe we should—"

"Alright!" Vaan pulls away. "I get it." The blank eyes are back, unreadable and unbreachable. Balthier wonders at which point was it that Vaan learned to shut off, and he cares not to imagine what precipitated it.

Vaan stalks past, deeper into the ship, and his friend subsides, though she wrings her hands and glances at Fran. Balthier looks on, tempted to scrub his tired eyes and groan were it not for the fact that Vaan is still within earshot. He recognizes this. He cannot help but recognize this.

Vaan is gone the next morning.

Penelo is beside herself with worry, but Balthier cuts through her clamour firmly.

"He will be fine," he says. "We, however, need to make haste and warn the Houses Dalmasca and Margrace."

"Warn them of what?"

Three days later, a small Archadian fighter ship hovers nearby, conveying its intentions to dock, and Vaan steps from it, a brilliant bruise upon his cheek and a triumphant glitter in his eye.

He pulls Larsa by an arm, and he looks straight at Balthier.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	3. That which lives to fight

3. **That which lives to fight**

Balthier/Vaan, post-canon

Disclaimer still applies.

I'm still trying to breach the odd disjoint between short and long fics, since in shorts, every single word must count and mean a lot more than in longfics, where I like to let things start slowly and build. Please be patient? *u*

* * *

><p>Larsa always knows where Vaan is.<p>

Balthier watches the Emperor speak to Vaan, and he sees the small, fond smile. He is taller than Vaan, but he is slender, and Vaan seems to dwarf him.

Vaan says something, and Larsa laughs, a sharp sound, and he lays a hand on Vaan's arm.

Balthier turns away.

Archades is silent to the rest of Ivalice, but Ashe contacts them and tells them that a Judge Magister visits her court, eyeing those who may breathe too loudly with utmost suspicion, and she calls Vaan several names she has learned in the presence of sky pirates. The letter is delivered by Rikken, who smirks and says he envies Balthier's lively crew.

When Vaan expresses the desire to visit the Necrohol at Nabudis and asks Balthier to accompany him, Larsa insists on following. Balthier eyes Larsa's ill-fitting mail, scrounged out from the scraps that Balthier had not yet sold, and Larsa stares back, a mutinous set to his chin. Vaan shrugs and agrees, and Balthier heaves an exasperated sigh.

"Bah."

* * *

><p>Vaan leads them into the Salikawood, and Balthier catches Fran's eye through the wide windows of the cockpit where the Strahl hovers. She nods, and his ship soars away.<p>

They go through the Deadlands, where the Mist hangs heavy and impenetrable as it did years ago.

Vaan goes out of his way to walk ahead, engaging and cutting down the undead warriors roaming the land before they can approach Larsa. Balthier wonders at Vaan's goals, watching him splash through the marsh to rouse monsters that would not otherwise attack them, but when Vaan lets a half-destroyed fiend past him and Balthier raises the Fomalhaut, what he sees gives him pause.

Vaan stands still, eyes focussed and sharp as Larsa blocks a spear thrust and lunges forward, hacking into skeletal limbs with his borrowed sword.

Larsa takes a heavy slash to his side, and the healing spell that Vaan sends out is so immediate that he must have been preparing it well in advance.

Balthier fires on the zombie warrior creeping up behind Vaan, and the Fomalhaut's shot blasts its head apart. Balthier shrugs when Vaan blinks at him. He leans the barrel of his gun against his shoulder, and he waits as Vaan continues to train the Emperor.

* * *

><p>Baknamy descend upon them in the Necrohol in shrieking waves, and Vaan takes so many hits for Larsa that Balthier thinks there is more blood on the ground than within the fool.<p>

He does not have time to do anything other than cast healing spells over and over, and Balthier's hand begins to burn at the strain of concentrating magick.

Vaan shoulders through the beasts with blind, brute force. When they find the odd merchant who eyes them silently as he displays his wares, he hastily outfits Larsa with armour and ring, smelling of fresh magick, before rushing them back the way they came. Balthier considers protesting that the entrance to the Salikawood is much closer, but Vaan gives him a pleading look that sucks the breath from his lungs.

He thinks he knows why Vaan needs Larsa to be stronger, but he says dryly, when Larsa cannot hear, that Penelo would have been better suited to baby-sitting duty. Vaan scowls, and he stares at Balthier for a long time.

He watches Vaan rip viciously through an Oversoul after it knocks Larsa down, and he thinks the man is too much of a knight.

Vaan lets Larsa fight, once they reach the Deadlands, but then power presses a heavy hand against the back of Balthier's neck, and he spins to see Leamonde looming over him, churning angrily, before dark magick engulfs him and burns his throat. Balthier hisses, tenses, and prepares support magick, wishing he has brought another weapon.

Vaan shouts at him to leave it, and he takes Larsa's hand and runs.

* * *

><p>Vaan is mulishly silent as he sits. Balthier knows his hands are not gentle as he tends to the remaining wounds, but he does not care. Vaan grits his teeth through Balthier's impatient lecture on the fouls of reckless behaviour, and he pushes away roughly when Balthier is finished wrapping potion-soaked bandages over Vaan's skin, reddened and irritated by repeated healing magick. Balthier watches him stalk away.<p>

"He sees the people he could not protect in me."

Balthier looks back sharply. He has forgotten Larsa's presence in his frustration.

"This is neither the time nor the place for training missions. We must return you to Archades before your government seizes upon this chance to wage war against the rest of the continent."

"They will not admit that I am missing for some time. It will be seen as a weakness."

Balthier scowls. "Of course. The Empire cares for nothing but strength, and they will take it where they may find it."

Larsa's lips tighten, and when he speaks next, it is cold. "Odd, is it not, when the strong are exploited for being too strong."

* * *

><p>The cockpit of the Strahl is dark, muted shadows falling dimly from the glow of magicite lighting the dashboard.<p>

Balthier loves the night sky as much as the endless blue of the day. He flies, and the stars swallow him.

He does not hear the footsteps until Vaan is leaning over the seat.

Balthier glances back. "Enjoy the outing today?"

Vaan's eyes are luminous and too bright.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think I did not see your face as you fought?"

Vaan blinks slowly. He leans in, and his heat burns against Balthier's shoulder blade. He reaches out and flips the switch that allows the Strahl to cruise at constant altitude. Balthier sits still, waiting, and Vaan tugs at his cravat.

Breaths coil over Balthier's collarbone, and the taps of the tip of a tongue over his nape cause Balthier to dig his nails into the soft leather of his seat.

Balthier jerks away.

"I do not intend to indulge a vulgar, hormonal battle's high, Vaan," Balthier says, making to rise.

Strong arms snake over his chest, pressing him back into his seat, and lips brush over his ear.

"You didn't seem to have any trouble doing so that night."

"I sought to reach you that time, and you rejected my offer of help."

"I missed you."

The words are soft and short, but they roar in Balthier's ear in a dizzying confusion of fear and want and jealousy and despair, and when Vaan tugs his earring into his mouth and slides his hand under Balthier's vest, he cannot help the strangled noise he makes in the base of his throat.

He stands, spins Vaan around and shoves him down until his cheek flattens against the controls of Balthier's airship, and he rips at the laces holding the trousers at Vaan's hips.

Vaan looks up at him through lowered lashes, his breaths laying pale fog on the dials under him.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	4. That which bleeds

4. **That which bleeds**

Bal/Vaan, post-canon

Aaaaand we come back to the heavy angst. A bit of backstory for anyone who may be interested in what makes Vaan tick after all these years. It's by no means complete, though, as I have plenty of retroactive torture planned for poor Vaan.

Many thanks to difficile, for being an inspiration and great support.

* * *

><p>The pain is a burning, twisting thing as the Zodiac Spear punches through his gut.<p>

He hunts the Cerobi Steppe often, but he thinks he has become complacent in his partnership with Fran. She wears her Ribbon always, and status spells trickle from her as water from a Gigantoad's back. Balthier grunts, and it is an ugly croak through the blood in his mouth. He wishes that Fran were present, even if she were to call him a foolish hume-child.

Balthier grips the shaft tightly, bracing against the tug when Vaan tries to wrench the weapon back, and he aims so that the shot grazes the man's shoulder and gouges out a strip of shirt and skin in passing.

The Silver Lobo is dead and crumpled to the ground from Balthier's attack, but he was not quick enough to prevent its thrice-damned Screech.

Balthier sees the glazed cast of Confusion fade from Vaan's eyes, and the stricken horror that seeps over the churl's face is almost enough to make him laugh, could he breathe.

He does not feel it when he falls, and he notes the spreading numbness of his body shutting down with detached interest. Vaan rushes toward him, and the glitter Balthier sees could be the glow of magick or the odd flashes of his vision failing him.

* * *

><p>There is a tight bandage wound around his waist when Balthier wakes.<p>

Penelo smiles and sits back. "Thank goodness you're alright," she says.

He is in his cabin aboard the Strahl, and the soft fabric lining his bed is stained and rumpled. Balthier pulls himself up onto his elbows, and his tattered shirt falls open further. He fingers the bloodied rips ruefully and thinks that he will need to pay a visit to his tailor much sooner than anticipated.

There is a minute blush on Penelo's face, but she looks in his eyes and does not pull away from helping him up.

Balthier smiles at her, and he turns his head to the door.

Vaan leans against the frame, arms clutched about himself tightly, and when Balthier meets his gaze, he sees a storm.

"The rainclouds over your head are disturbing my rest, Vaan," Balthier says.

He frowns when Vaan flinches harshly. Vaan spins and runs, and the door slams shut after him.

"Was it something I said?"

"Vaan..." Penelo says, and she pauses, swallowing hard. "Vaan had command over a squad when he first arrived in Archades. They were recruits from Dalmasca, mostly. They thought it would calm him and help to control him."

"Why put so much effort into a boy who cannot be beckoned easily?"

Penelo picks at the bedsheet where a loose thread is trailing, and she shrugs. "Basch noticed first. That the Council was becoming overly powerful. He tried to... he tried to protect Larsa. He threatened them, and along the way, he spoke of a small group of warriors strong enough to face the Occuria." The words force past Penelo's lips as heavy as stones. "He... Larsa found him soaking in his own blood, and the Council called it a suicide."

"But they had Vaan, by then."

"Yes."

Balthier waits, but Penelo does not seem inclined to continue, and he prods gently. "And the soldiers under Vaan's command?"

Penelo is silent for a long time.

Balthier shakes his head. "I believe I can imagine—"

"Vaan killed them."

Penelo looks up at him through dry, wide eyes.

"Vaan was hit by the breath of a Marlboro Overking, and he killed them all."

* * *

><p>Vaan's muscles are tense under Balthier's hands, and he does not respond to the soft caresses.<p>

Balthier palms a sharp hip, kneading into the dark skin with his fingers, and he tries to coax Vaan into relaxing because he is so tight that he teeters on the brink between pain and pleasure.

It is dark in the cabin, and Balthier hears nothing but the rasp of his breath and the hum of magicite power. He sighs, and he stills his thrusts until they are barely nudges, and his skin scrapes over Vaan's with every movement.

"I do wish you would quit this fretful nuisance. You know he never dies, the leading man." He smiles, a quick twitch of his lips.

It is then that Vaan shifts under him, and Balthier reacts, digging his nails into the slick flesh under his hands so hard that he fears he has broken skin, and Vaan gasps.

Balthier pulls his hands back, but Vaan has opened up as a Galbana lily does in the morning, and he rocks up and forward, and he pushes hard against Balthier.

"Balthier..." he says softly.

The sound of Vaan's voice uncoils something hot and suffocating in his chest.

"Balthier,_ please_."

Blood surges through Balthier's body and roars in his ears, and he cannot do anything but feel. He slams his hips forward, and he reaches out and tugs and rakes until Vaan is quivering and shaking, hissing in pain. Vaan cries out at a particularly sharp yank on his hair, and Balthier freezes.

He stops. No.

He leans down, and he tries to lay a kiss on Vaan's open mouth.

Vaan turns his head to a side, and he clenches around Balthier until the sky pirate shudders and falls.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	5. That which lives to breathe

5. **That which lives to breathe**

Bal/Vaan - post-canon

Disclaimers still apply.

Had to bring out a bit of lighter fare (aka ridiculous fluff) after the suffocating angst of the last part. This was actually a lot of fun to write, and it brought back all my memories of running around aimlessly doing silly side quests. Humour me, please.

* * *

><p>Vaan looks ridiculous sitting in the Cockatrice pen, feathers clinging to his mess of hair.<p>

The birds cluck excitedly over him as if he is a long lost chick returned from a far journey, and Balthier tells Vaan so.

"They remember me," Vaan says.

Balthier scoffs. "Of course they do. Given the multitude of their number who have wandered every corner of Ivalice, they must possess memories long as the day during the Dry to recall each lost member."

"You helped to return them, though."

"Only when I could no longer stand the altruistic whingeings of our beloved princess."

Vaan stands, wiping his hands of dust, and he gives Balthier a doubtful look. "I hope you never let Basch hear you talk like that about her."

"But of course. I am no fool. The sky pirate combines dashing bravery with a healthy dose of self-preservation." He raises his brows at Vaan significantly. "A lesson you have yet to learn, Vaan."

But Vaan is looking at the ground, and his lips part and twitch.

Ah. Balthier bites his tongue.

"Basch was a good man," he says finally.

Vaan tugs the feathers from his hair and clothes, and his eyes dart over Balthier and away again. "Come on, I want to bring Dalan a sun stone."

* * *

><p>The dark crystals are few and far between, and Balthier glances often at the wall of sooty cloud, flickering of lightning, rolling in from the coast in the east.<p>

"Will you cease this, Vaan. It is but a simple matter to purchase a sun stone instead of traipsing about these plains while the Rains bear down upon us. You may not even be able to complete the stone before the light fades."

Vaan sends a Hyena flying with a swipe of his sword and moves on toward the glimmer on the horizon. He frowns at Balthier over his shoulder. "But there will be none of good enough quality like I can make myself."

"I do hope a Cockatrice has not Petrified your mind. Dalan will be pleased to see you no matter what manner of gift you bring."

"I want to give him a sun stone."

Balthier lets his head fall forward as he groans.

* * *

><p>The last flickers of light fade from the dark crystal as the stone in Vaan's hand takes on a steady, warm glow. Vaan smiles and tucks it into a pocket, glancing back at Balthier.<p>

Balthier slings his gun over his shoulder. "Yes, yes, hurrah. Now if you're quite finished..."

There is a Giza Rabbit at their feet, which has followed them half the length of the Plains upon spotting them nearly an hour past. It shakes its plume of a tail and peers up at Balthier, dancing away and back when Balthier shoos at it absently. It chatters rapidly and hops up to Vaan's boot.

The sky blackens as Balthier hurries, and the beast is still following them several minutes later when its squeaking abruptly shifts and becomes shrilly discordant. It dashes away, shooting down into a hollow half-hidden behind a baked red stone, and Balthier looks up when the sky rips open and rain pours down on them.

He levels narrowed eyes at Vaan, who shrugs and continues walking despite the water plastering his hair down against his skull.

* * *

><p>Vaan has somehow angered a Wooly Gator in passing, and Balthier casts a wind spell impatiently. It shreds the monster where it rears, and it thuds to the ground, splashing up a spray of mud.<p>

Lightning arcs over Balthier's arms, stinging and spitting, and he bites back a curse.

Spinning around, Balthier backs away quickly, keeping a wary eye on Mardu as it roils and grows, roaring and blinding in its brightness.

He sees the shimmer of Reflect, and Balthier clenches his hand, gathering magick. He feels the blisters from the burns stretch and begin to harden.

Mardu darkens and falls back briefly when the Dispel hits. In as much as it could, Balthier thinks it looks furious.

"I can't see in the rain!" Vaan shouts over the thunderous noise of the Entite. "Cover me for a bit, and I'll summon Mateus!"

Balthier nods, shots from the Fomalhaut striking straight to Mardu's core.

A chill gathers, and he feels as if the ground hardens and ices under his feet. Then, Vaan is gasping for breath and stumbling, and the cold is washed away by rain.

"What happened?" Balthier steadies Vaan and tugs him along as he continues backing away.

"I don't know! The esper refused me."

"Can they do that?" Balthier is genuinely surprised.

"It's never happened before. I still have the mark of the contract, so it should have worked."

Balthier frowns, but he shakes his head. "Very well. We do not need the summon." Balthier looks up at the blinding light, and he draws deep upon his magick reserves. There is a glow beside him, and he knows Vaan is doing the same. Ice forms in towering pillars and slams into the Entite again and again.

* * *

><p>Rabanastre towers over the flat plains ahead, and the rain has lessened to a caressing patter.<p>

Balthier turns his face up into the sky and lets the water tap onto his closed eyelids. The coolness is soothing and welcome after the exhaustion of having his magick depleted and the prickle of healed skin, but there is something giddy in him at having seen Mardu wisp away into nothing.

"Ready?" he asks Vaan.

Vaan looks at him steadily with eyes like the sky, and he bites his lip. He nods, water trickling down his nose and cheeks.

Vaan steps closer to him, and Balthier smiles, lifting one corner of his mouth, before he closes his eyes.

The kiss is soft as the rain.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	6. That which regrets

6. **That**** which ****regrets**

Balthier/Vaan – post-canon

Disclaimer still applies.

Backstory. Plot progression. What have you.

* * *

><p>The sun stone's glow casts Dalan's features into sharp relief when he smiles. He cups it in his weathered hands, and Balthier can see his skin shade red as light filters through his thin fingers.<p>

There is a soft smile on Vaan's lips, and Balthier cannot help but watch.

"Vaan..." Dalan says. "I hoped that I would see you again."

"I'm sorry I haven't visited in so long."

"But where have you vanished to these several long years, m'boy?"

Vaan's smile freezes and cracks. His eyes flick over, and Balthier's throat clenches at what he sees. It is gone just as suddenly, shuttered behind a blank wall, and Vaan raises a hand to rub at his nape. His back is stiff as a Shield Wyrm's scale.

Balthier watches Vaan's mouth open and shut soundlessly for a moment, and he speaks quickly.

"My utmost apologies, Dalan," he says, and he fights back the grimace at the sound of his voice. "It seems I and my illustrious partner have corrupted poor Vaan to the life of the sky pirate. The vagabond who knows no home, if you will."

Fran's ear twitches, and Balthier meets her eye. Ah, it is a hint of amusement that he sees there. Better that than disapproval.

"Forgot the landbound, have you?" Dalan says to Vaan, but there is something quiet under the jovial tones.

Vaan stares.

"And the children? Kytes and Filo? They too left to seek their fortune in the skies, I remember."

Balthier prepares another lie, wrapping his fingers tight, but Vaan shakes his head sharply.

"It's alright," Vaan says. His voice is hoarse and forced. "I wanted to tell Dalan, anyway."

Balthier pauses, and he closes his eyes and nods before leading the others away. He feels the stare boring between his shoulder blades as he leaves.

* * *

><p>There is a festival in the streets of Lowtown that night, as Dalmascans celebrate the coming of the harvest as only the desert people can.<p>

Balthier sits, the grit of sand sharp under his fingers, and he tilts his head back, breathing in the heady, sweet scent of smoke. The Dalmascans have tossed dried herbs into the blazing fire lit in the centre of Lowtown's congregation square, and he wonders what manner of leaves burn with crimson sparks and heavy scent. He thinks it may be a drug. His limbs feel weighted, but his core light, and Balthier sighs and savours the sensation.

There are dancers around the flames that leap as high as a man is tall. Balthier recalls the movements; he has never seen dancers graceful as the desert children, and he watches the swirl of air-light scarves and bare, sun-darkened feet.

Bright eyes, bright hair, and dusky skin whirl and pause in front of Balthier, and there are two children, a boy and a girl barely as tall as his hip, peering at him. They smile brightly, and they turn their eyes to Vaan, who sits several paces away. They must recognize his colouring as one of their own because they reach out and snatch his hands, tugging toward the fire.

Vaan shakes his head, pale hair flicking into his eyes, and Balthier watches the lingering trail of light imprinted in his eyes.

The boy pouts, and he turns his attention to Penelo, who smiles shyly and takes his hand.

The girl smiles even wider, and as Penelo passes by, being tugged by the small boy, she pulls at Vaan again.

Vaan turns pained eyes to Balthier for a moment, and he hides a smirk at the resignation he sees. Vaan stands and follows the girl.

The low thud of drums, the flickering of the fire, and the spins and leaps of the dancers mesmerize, and Balthier starts when a high voice sounds next to his ear.

"He looks better without the armour, kupo."

Montblanc stands next to Balthier, his arms crossed over his small chest, and he is nodding his head so that his pom-pom narrowly misses hitting Balthier's temple.

"Yes," Balthier says. "Lighter, I should think."

He watches the dancers for a moment longer. Vaan is taller than most of the others, yet he moves fluid as the flames, all languid twists and outflung hands. Balthier frowns, and he looks back at Montblanc. "You knew?"

"Do not underestimate the information network of Clan Centurio, kupo!"

"And yet you never told me when I agreed to seek hunts for you?"

"You didn't ask."

Balthier rolls his eyes.

Vaan glances toward him, skin flushed from the heat of the fire and the exertion.

* * *

><p>Balthier can see the twisted hull of the fallen Bahamut, Sky Fortress, from where he stands.<p>

The metal glitters under the sun, red with rust over most the panelling. It shines like dried blood.

"What of the nethicite?" Ashe asks, an impatient tinge to her voice.

"What of it?" Balthier turns and leans against the window sill. He examines his hands idly, and he notes a chip in a nail.

"If we are to war with Archades, perhaps it will provide the firepower that we need. You _were_ arrested for its theft, were you not?"

Balthier looks long and hard at Ashe, and she flushes.

"Do you never learn, my Queen?" he says dryly. "In this struggle between men, we cannot rely on the whimsy of self-styled gods."

"What will we do, then?" Penelo asks. She grimaces, glancing at Vaan, who stands silent, eyes trained upon the cracks between the tiles of the floor. The perfect soldier, awaiting its turnkey. "The direct approach? Storm the palace, kill the Council?"

Balthier wrinkles his nose. "I should hope we possess somewhat more subtlety than that, but that would be the general idea. Have you not heard that the simplest plan is often the most effective as well?"

"So we fly for Archades, then," Larsa says quietly.

"Yes, let's."

Ashe scowls. "I remain curious as to what happened to the stolen nethicite," she says archly. "Do you keep it for yourself?"

"And style myself a hypocrite?"

"So you have sold it?"

Balthier sighs, brushing the wrinkles loose from his sleeves, suddenly undesirous of meeting Ashe's eye. "No," he says shortly. "I returned it to its rightful owner. She is the daughter of a researcher whom I met when he worked with Cid at Draklor, as he was part of the original team responsible for the development of manufacted nethicite. The nethicite in question was made for the woman as a gift, but it was seized by the Archadian Empire when war first threatened. Upon his death, he informed his daughter that he wished her to destroy the stone." Balthier flexes his hands. "His greatest mistake, he supposedly called it. The woman then posted a bill on the hunts' board asking for its retrieval, and I recognized the name."

He looks up now, and he sees Fran's narrowed eyes, but he affects nonchalance, and she holds her tongue. The mix of amusement and surprise in Ashe's gaze makes his skin itch. "Balthier the Just," she says, pressing her lips together as if battling a smile.

"Your comments lack an appreciative audience, Lady Ashe," Balthier retorts, and he ignores Penelo's chuckle. "In any case, the nethicite is likely long-gone." He pauses, tapping a be-ringed finger over his arm. "A most peculiar woman," he muses. "She collects Mandragora stalks, and insisted on showing me the curative properties of her prized set."

There is a thud, and Balthier looks up. Vaan has slipped from where he leans against the wall, and his elbow has slammed into the stone behind him. His eyes are flitting restlessly as he rights himself, bracing a hand against the wall.

"This woman," Vaan says, his voice a strangled reed, "does she live in the small red house next to the armour shop in Bhujerba?"

"Yes," Balthier says quietly, after a while. He stares at Vaan, at the shakes in his shoulders and the clench of his hands. "What did you do?"

Vaan's jaw ripples until it is white under the strain.

"Vaan, _what __did __you __do_?"

"They found out about her. I don't know how. I brought her to Archades. She stood trial the day before your escape, and after that..." Vaan looks up, eyes hard and black. "She was executed."

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	7. That which drowns

7. **That which drowns**

Bal/Vaan, post-canon

Disclaimers still apply.

Hmm... Another short interlude, very short, before we move on with the plot.**  
><strong>

* * *

><p>The Royal Palace of Rabanastre is solemn in Vaan's absence.<p>

Of course, Balthier corrects himself, the man's presence would not liven, either, the way he carries on lately as if he bears the world on his shoulders like that hero of Nabradian legend. Balthier remembers not the name, and he dismisses the thought.

The Queen cannot shirk her duties for long, and Balthier has seen barely a hair on her head of late, though she catches his eye at times, and her features are heavy with poorly-concealed worry.

Balthier wishes not to hear another half-frantic discussion on Vaan's safety between Penelo and Larsa, and so he shuts himself into his room and waits.

The man is more than capable of fending for himself.

It is the irritated flick of Fran's ear and the very nearly exasperated "_Balthier_" that alerts him to his own pacing.

"If you worry, then _seek_," Fran says when he stops.

Balthier does not apologize because it is Fran, and Fran knows. He nods, and he leaves the palace. He walks, and in the end, it is Old Dalan who regards him strangely and says, without hesitation, "Look to the desert."

* * *

><p>It is the scent of blood that draws Balthier to the Zertinan Caverns.<p>

He sees the Wolves before he sees the hunched figure on the ground, surrounded by mauled, half-eaten corpses. Vaan's shoulders are streaked with blood and dust, and he cannot see if they move with breath. He smothers the thought, steps quickly over the exposed rib-cage of a fallen Mallicant, and he raises his weapon.

He puts shot through the skulls of the beasts before they can do more than whimper, and he crouches down to press the fingers of a hand against Vaan's neck.

Balthier is half-expecting the reaction, given the number of dead creatures surrounding the man, and so he blocks the quick slash toward his shoulder by slapping his forearm into Vaan's wrist and knocking the sword from his hand.

The punch to his chest that follows winds him, and Balthier stumbles back, raising his arms, but Vaan is motionless, squinting at him as if he has not opened his eyes for days.

"Balthier?" he says hoarsely.

Balthier does not reply, but he scowls blackly and throws a waterskin toward Vaan's head.

"What's this?"

"What does it look like?" Balthier snaps. "Drink the water. You have been missing for three days, and I am willing to wager the Strahl that you have not had anything to eat or drink here. You are not yet a Cactuar, Vaan."

Vaan pulls a face, and he uncorks the skin. "The springs—"

"Are poisoned by Mist and monster. You know that as well as I do, you simpleton. Now drink, and we return to Rabanastre."

Water trickles down the side of Vaan's chin, leaving pale tracks in the dirt. "Balthier, I—"

"Did not kill the woman."

Vaan looks at him. "I have plenty of blood on my hands, Balthier."

"Yes, we are all quite aware. Do you think me an innocent?"

"I—"

"No," Balthier says sharply, and waves an agitated hand. "Do you think so little of your comrades that you believe we care?"

"You do," Vaan says quietly. He wipes his mouth with a filthy hand, and he stands, his spine cracking into place in a ghastly cacophony. He glances up at Balthier's impatient stare, and he looks down. "Not yet," he says. "I want..."

Balthier sighs. He does so often lately. "Do what you must."

* * *

><p>The dust hangs through the air like a curtain in the Undershore, roiling and shifting, and Balthier can nearly see shapes in the shades.<p>

His eyes flick to Vaan, and the man is staring into the billowing sand as if entranced.

Balthier feels it settling upon his skin, and he wonders if the caves will be buried before too long, smothered by grey dust.

"Where do you think the dead go after they die?" Vaan says suddenly, his voice muffled by the hiss of sifting sand.

Balthier thinks for a moment. It is not the question he would have expected, but he is discovering, more and more, that Vaan is nothing if not unpredictable. "The Wood Viera believe that the dead return to the Wood, and they are visible in the motes of light that weave in the trees," he says. "Myself, I prefer the nursery tale that permits the dead to become stars in the sky."

"You believe this?"

Balthier watches a plume of sand reach out and settle, sliding a phantom finger down Vaan's cheek. "No," he says. "But I enjoy the story."

Vaan turns to look at him, something unreadable upon his face. He sways slightly as he steps forward, and he leans until his forehead rests against Balthier's collar.

Balthier feels the feverish heat through his clothing, and he exhales lightly, his breath stirring up the dust.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	8. That which turns and returns

8. **That which turns and returns**

Bal/Vaan, post-canon

Disclaimer: All characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is made from the writing of this work, and no copyright infringement is intended. In fact, if time is money, I'm paying you.

And now we move. Dry though it may be, I enjoy plot and action as much as I enjoy Balthier's distress, as sadistic as that sounds.

* * *

><p>Vaan shuts himself away in the old storeroom above Tomaj's abandoned shop the day before they stage Larsa's triumphant return to Archades.<p>

There is no movement within the room, and Balthier ignores it.

He does not ask, and when Larsa looks at him and tells him he does not know what Vaan is doing, either, Balthier rolls his eyes. He leaves to walk the streets of Lowtown, where young Emperors do not pretend to know every nuance of Balthier's thoughts, but he is stiff around Larsa for the rest of the day.

When the door opens in the morning, and the Judge steps out, his back straight and long, Balthier thinks he should not be surprised. They will pass through patrols easily, and Vaan knows this better than any other.

Balthier looks into the closed helmet, silent and unflinching, and his stomach rebels.

* * *

><p>They take the Archadian fighter and Larsa does not say anything when he sits on the floor with them while Vaan pilots. Ashelia twists her fingers and says that she cannot accompany them, and Balthier sees the ring flash as it catches the light.<p>

The codes have changed since Larsa's disappearance, but Vaan speaks quickly and bullies his way onto the patrol ship that stops them, and Balthier does not see what happens. Then, the patrol gives them clearance in a wooden voice and Vaan asks Balthier to follow their new escort.

They are ignored as they land in a disused aerodrome, broken and crumbling, at the edge of Old Archades, and Vaan is the only one who exits the patrol ship.

Balthier takes his hand off his gun forcibly.

* * *

><p>Balthier does not bother to hide his distaste as he stands before Jules. The man's eyes skitter like a rat, lingering on Larsa, who hides his hair under a hat and wears a common nobleman's jacket, and Balthier clears his throat.<p>

"Quite a motley crew you keep company with, Master Balthier." Jules glances at the Judge's armour and away again, his shrug dismissing it as stolen.

"I have my reasons."

"Ahh." Jules clicks his tongue and smiles. "So, you approach the palace. Difficult, but with the right information... Perhaps we can broker a deal beneficial to us all."

He looks to Larsa again, and his smile becomes decidedly smug.

Balthier shifts slightly to draw attention to the weapon at his side, and he smirks when Jules's eyes flicker. The price will not be so steep as Jules would like.

He does not see Vaan move.

There is a thud, and a sick crack of skull meeting stone. Jules moans, tilting his head up against the press of metal to his throat.

"We do not play your games, this time," Vaan says softly, and Jules's eyes widen in recognition.

Jules hesitates for a moment, and he says, "Speak to Otto. He works near the gates these days."

Vaan leans in until the metallic scowl of his helm must fill Jules's vision, and Jules flinches. Apparently satisfied by what he sees, Vaan steps back.

He presses gloved fingers into Jules's palm, and he turns and walks away, a hand on Larsa's shoulder. "Take them," he says. "I have no further use for them."

Penelo glances back before following, and Fran shakes her head languidly.

Jules is coughing, rubbing his neck with his free hand. He steps forward, showing Balthier his hand.

A small pile of sandalwood chops lies in his palm, stacked neatly.

"Your apprentice will soon outstrip his teacher, Master Balthier."

Balthier sighs. "Yet still a soft touch."

Jules shuffles back as he passes.

* * *

><p>Vaan walks oddly quietly for a man ensconced in heavy plate armour. He leads them to what must be the servants' quarters, for the smell of acrid soap and hay-strewn floors is strong. He walks with his head lifted, projecting the image of the haughty noble ignoring the commoners well enough that Balthier cannot help but think of his first glimpse of the Judges Magister striding through the palace. He was young and easily awed, then.<p>

He remembers Basch, suddenly.

The servants bow and scrape, scurrying to flatten themselves against the walls as they pass, and Vaan's step never falters.

Balthier watches the ridged metal of Vaan's back speculatively.

"Worry you not that the servants will report our presence? I hardly think Judges appear in this portion of the palace often," Fran says quietly, once they are alone with their muffled footsteps.

Balthier allows himself an inelegant snort. "Not these sheep," he says. "Archades tames her curs well."

"Harsh words," Fran says.

"Harsh truth."

* * *

><p>They wait until dead night before they move.<p>

Vaan tucks an Orichalcum Dirk into Balthier's hand without a word, but there is a warning in his eyes.

Balthier raises his brow. Did the man truly think he did not understand their need for silence this night?

"You _are_ rather flashy," Penelo murmurs, and Balthier attempts to appear as betrayed as humely possible.

They are all on edge, and Larsa smiles nervously at him. Balthier thinks that at the very least, the teasing has dispensed of some of the restless energy.

Vaan wears soft black boots now, and a servant's frock over his trousers, and Balthier watches him melt into the shadows as he gestures for the others to follow.

* * *

><p>The blood stain in the tented sheets grows rapidly, and Balthier watches the black edge travel.<p>

He looks to Vaan, who wipes his blade against a clean area of fabric and leaves dark stripes in its wake. What little light seeps in through the gated window splashes over Vaan's face, and the set to his eyes and jaw, it is dead and blank and loathesome.

He proposes they split up through dry lips. He has Vaan's dagger, he says, and he can take Larsa to show him where the Council members sleep.

Vaan looks at him, and he looks to Larsa before shaking his head. "No. Let's go."

The other Council members die just as silently.

* * *

><p>There is uproar in the morning, but Balthier watches as Larsa sits upon his high throne and quells the unrest with firm words and strong shoulders.<p>

The Emperor appears taller in his formal robes.

Balthier sees the tightness in his jaw and the pallor to his skin, though, and he frowns.

The last Council member had been awake, and the old man had reacted more quickly to his intruders than Balthier would have once thought possible. He had struck out at Larsa and crushed the bone in a leg before Vaan sliced through his throat, blade parting spine and cartilage both.

Larsa had trembled under Fran's hands as she prodded the wound and declared that it would heal before abruptly snapping the bone back into alignment.

She tells Penelo later that if Larsa is to regain use of the leg, it must heal naturally, for magick would scar the muscle irrecoverably, and Balthier thinks Penelo whitens, but takes the news admirably. Fran will leave the Emperor's health in Penelo's care without reservation.

As for the Emperor's safety, Balthier tilts his head to look to the armoured figure at Larsa's left hand.

It seems much larger now, with its ornate detailing and trailing cape.

Balthier turns to leave Archadia's Emperor under the protection of her newest Judge Magister, and he thinks the great horned helm inclines gently toward him.

He feels heavy, as if he is the one under the burden.

* * *

><p>It is nearly a month later that Balthier receives Vaan's message, and it is short, abrupt, and scrawled in a hurried hand.<p>

_All is not well._

Balthier turns the Strahl north, and it is as if the sky watches.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	9. That which falls

9. **That which falls**

Bal/Vaan, post-canon

Disclaimers still apply.

Oh god, I'm very sorry, but I'm starting to lose control over this thing. It won't follow my plan, and I can't force it to. So please, please tell me if/when my characterization becomes too much to reasonably stomach. I will see this plot through to the end, but it's the angst that just won't behave.**  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Vaan clutches the heavy helm so hard Balthier thinks his fingers leave imprints in the metal.<p>

"Did Larsa not personally choose the current Council members? What reason have you to suspect foul play?"

Penelo shakes her head at Fran's query. "I can't explain it. It's almost as if they look at Larsa like they're _hungry_."

Balthier listens, but he watches Vaan, instead. Eyes narrowed, he stares into nothing. "Why have you sent for me?" Balthier says quietly.

Vaan's fingers whiten further. "There's a Council meeting today that I have been barred from attending. We will watch it." He looks at Balthier, eyes hard. "If it comes to it, I want you to protect Larsa."

"And you?"

"I'll do what I have to."

Vaan's lip curls, and the ornate helm hits the wall with a bang like a gunshot.

* * *

><p>The secret chamber is well made, Balthier thinks. It is dimly lit, so that the entrance to the Council's hall traces a faint golden outline. Balthier breathes slowly through his open mouth so that the air does not whistle, and he listens.<p>

"Giruvegan?"

Larsa's voice is puzzled, but there is a cautious edge to it.

"I have heard suggestions of this vein before, and yet I still wonder. What use would we have for flying upon Giruvegan?"

"Of resources rich, and of power an endless source," a voice responds gently, chidingly.

"Resources and power for war! This is a time of peace, my friend."

"Peace? No! The Occuria!" the voice snaps, quick as a whip. "Too long have the Occuria treated us foul. With the resources of Giruvegan in our hands, the Undying will have no method of fighting back!"

There are clatters, as if chairs are overturned.

"They would require vessels for combat, and vessels may be destroyed. You, Archades, will ally with Rozarria, and you will take Giruvegan together."

Balthier grasps Vaan's arm, and he shakes his head at Vaan's furious glare. Not yet.

"Now is the time for _vengeance_!"

There is the scrape of metal leaving sheaths, and Vaan wrenches free, slamming his shoulder into the hidden door.

Balthier hears the shouts and the impact of hard blows, but he looks to Larsa instead. A man rears up behind the Emperor, dagger flashing in his hand, and Balthier shoots. Larsa flinches at the sound, and Balthier reaches out, tugging Larsa's head down and pulling him back and away.

"They are possessed," Larsa pants. "They must be!"

"Vaan!" Balthier calls. "We leave!"

He tugs Larsa into the secret passageway, and the Emperor's words are so soft enough as to make him wonder if he hears them at all.

"They were my friends."

* * *

><p>There are cries and pounding pursuit, and they run.<p>

Balthier sees Fran half-turn, and he hears a magickal whirlwind roar through the air behind them. There are screams.

He glances at Vaan. "It would have been preferable to find out their motives in more detail. As such, we can only speculate as to the identities of those in control," he says.

Vaan's eyes flicker about ceaselessly, searching for danger. "They would have killed Larsa if he did not agree," he argues, his voice rough.

Balthier turns his eyes forward and does not call Vaan an impulsive fool. He must think of escape first.

They are near to a small gate set in the palace wall, now, and guards mill about, blocking the egress.

Vaan looks to Larsa, and the Emperor nods, taking a breath as if to speak.

"Stop them!"

Balthier looks back. A young man stands behind them, clutching an injured arm as blood seeps through his sleeve.

"They kidnap the Emperor!" It is the same voice, Balthier hears. The one which demanded vengeance.

The guards hesitate for a moment, surprise at the order mingling with what must be recognition of Vaan, but Vaan labours under no such burden. Metal screeches against metal, and blood flies.

Vaan dashes by them, rushing back toward the palace, and Larsa spins, pulling away from Balthier's grasp.

"Vaan, _no_!"

Vaan stops short, his shoulders tense as a bowstring. He stands close to the Council member that Larsa called friend, and the man convulses.

When Vaan steps back, his body still blocks Balthier's view, but he hears the slick sound of metal leaving flesh, and he hears the gentle plops of something soft hitting the ground.

The man falls backward, and there is a thump and a rising cloud of dust, hanging in the dry air.

Vaan turns slowly, and Balthier fixes his eyes on the blood clotting to his hands and sword, so thick as to be black.

* * *

><p>They stand in the Strahl, silent against the hum of magicite powered engines. Balthier touches the controls, and he feels her wings shift as if stretching on smoothly oiled muscles. There is a burst of speed, and he twists in his seat, looking back to check on his passengers.<p>

Larsa sways, but he keeps his feet. His mouth twitches, as if he tries to smile, but his eyes dart away from Vaan.

The helmet had been left behind, lying on the floor where it had landed.

Penelo places a gentle hand on the thick metal over Vaan's forearm, and she looks hurt when Vaan shrugs it off, but she sees Vaan's face, and she does not speak.

Vaan's hands fly and fumble over the latches and buckles, and he steps from the Judge Magister's armour like a larva shedding its skin.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	10. That which flees

10. **That which flees**

Bal/Vaan - post-canon

Disclaimers still apply.

Whew, crisis semi-averted. I've decided to go with an odd approach to the resolution. I usually like to have the crisis later on, followed by a rapid dénouement, but we'll see how this gradual fall-apart goes. This entire fic is experimental, and that somewhat terrifies me.

Past the half-way point, folks! Thank you to everyone who's reading along, and special thanks to difficile for being wonderful. **  
><strong>

* * *

><p>They fly.<p>

Balthier has no destination in mind. He does not think upon what he heard in Archades. Larsa wonders aloud that he does not hear word of war brewing from the land below, but from the way he looks at Balthier, he knows it is because Balthier has not been, and does not yet want to be found.

Balthier sees the wall between Larsa and Vaan, but he shakes his head when Penelo speaks of her worry and Fran tells her that this is not a rift that outsiders may heal. He shrugs when Penelo turns to him, and she walks away, anger tensing her spine, when he says that it is not his business, or indeed, hers.

Fran looks at him hard.

So they fly, and Larsa shuts himself away while Vaan walks the Strahl aimlessly. He scrubs the skin of his hands raw, once, before Balthier finds him.

In the dark, when Vaan slips silently into his cabin, Balthier only parts his legs to accept Vaan's weight.

He is violent when he bites down on Balthier's lip, but Vaan is careful when he presses in. There is something fervid in his voice when Vaan whispers, and Balthier digs his fingers into slick skin.

He feels the heat of the pain.

* * *

><p>Ashe finds them before a fortnight is past.<p>

The Estersand stretches, red under the setting sun, and Rikken appears truly apologetic when he escorts the Queen from his ship to the Strahl.

Balthier thinks the Queen chooses an unlikely escort when she does not wish it to be known that she leaves her court. He thinks of Rikken's blunted fangs, and he smiles, but he holds his tongue.

Ashe is near in tears in her fury, and she stands close before Vaan, back arched so as not to speak to his chin, and she shouts of both Archades and Rozarria in her court, and of tension and barely smothered hostilities. She speaks of war, of blame. She asks Vaan what he intends to do next, or if he has indeed thought so far in advance. She shouts until Balthier wonders how her voice does not grind.

Ashe is silent, suddenly, staring at Vaan with parted lips.

Balthier follows her gaze, and he sees Vaan lift an outstretched finger. The tip traces the brooch affixed to Ashe's mantle, following the curves and outflung wings and barbs of the seal of Dalmasca.

"Don't worry," Vaan says softly. "I'll fix it. I'll fix everything."

"For Dalmasca?" Ashe says slowly, as if transfixed.

"For Dalmasca," Vaan agrees.

He tilts his head, and Balthier wonders when it was that Vaan learned to make a leading man's promise.

* * *

><p>There is a sea pirate in Whitecap Tavern who flashes white teeth against dark skin and ragged black hair, and he presses Vaan into the wall as he speaks.<p>

The breeze carries the flavour of the sea to Balthier, and he sits upon the windowsill with his face to the port of Balfonheim, but he slants his eyes, and he watches.

Vaan looks up at the pirate, his eyes old and shuttered. The tip of his tongue darts out to moisten his lower lip, to lap at the crack in the skin that Balthier had teased and soothed in the quiet of the morning, and the sea pirate grins and leans in to whisper in Vaan's ear.

The rage in his gut is sudden and unexpected, and it rips Balthier's breath away.

He desires nothing more than to kill the man, he thinks with sudden clarity. He wants to rip Vaan away and sink his teeth into the desert rat's neck.

But he sees Vaan's eyes flick to him, glowing as he stares for a moment, wide and unblinking, and Balthier realizes Vaan's game.

He digs his fingers into the corners of his tired eyes, and he walks out of the tavern.

* * *

><p>Balthier takes some time when he leaves Vaan behind and follows where his feet will.<p>

Balfonheim. It had begun in Balfonheim. The last time he visited the port town with Vaan in tow, he had the Cache of Glabados in his pouch. He was to take Vaan, marooned without his skyship, and Penelo back to Rabanastre in the morning.

He remembers hesitant, dusty fingers reaching for him, a hot, open mouth, and the whispered words "I knew you lived."

Balthier found he could take his wants of a pale-eyed man-child by dark.

Balthier fled to the skies after, with the sensation of those self-same eyes searing into his back.

He feels the damp of the cobblestones under his boots and the chill of the night numbs his fingers. He does not wish to go back to his room at Balfonheim manor, where Rikken, Raz, and Erza have taken up residence and protect the town in Reddas's place. The wind knifes through the fine cloth of his shirt and pebbles his skin, and Balthier sighs and gives.

Vaan is waiting for him.

Balthier considers that he spends his time attempting to teach his art to the boy, and yet it is the artful look in his eyes that Balthier cannot take. He thinks perhaps he must learn to appreciate irony more appropriately yet.

Vaan leans into him, radiating heat and rank fumes of liquor, and Balthier pushes him away so that he stumbles and sits abruptly on Balthier's bed.

"Stop."

Vaan blinks.

"We cannot do this anymore."

Vaan frowns, and he reaches out to the edge of Balthier's vest, but Balthier grabs the hand until he hears bones creak.

"You are falling to pieces, Vaan, and I cannot be a part of it anymore."

Vaan shows no sign of distress at the tight grip Balthier has on him, and he wonders just how much the churl has had to drink.

"Falling to pieces," Vaan says flatly.

"You wish to punish yourself for that which you could not control, and you want me to do it for you because it's easier. Well, I refuse. I do wish to help you recover your life, but I cannot do so like... like this."

"Too close, you mean." There is a mocking edge to Vaan's voice that Balthier has never before heard, and it pushes slivers of disgust under his skin.

Balthier closes his eyes and breathes deeply through his nose, and the urge to punch Vaan in the face passes reluctantly.

"Be that as it may, it does not change the end result." He stares down at Vaan. "You have quite the pretty face, Vaan. I'm sure you could find anyone you wished if you desire someone to hurt you, but it will not be me."

He leaves Vaan in his room and sleeps in the Strahl that night.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	11. That which is left behind

11. **That which is left behind**

Bal/Vaan - post-canon

Disclaimers still apply.

Some plot, some melodrama, some healing. This really is a very weird story, even (to) for me.**  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Vaan does not look to have slept the next morning.<p>

He is acerbic in his response to Penelo, who wonders why Ashe asks them to remain in Balfonheim until further notice, and his apology is stiff after, followed by a quick glance to Balthier.

Balthier bites into his apple and feigns ignorance.

He tells himself he is not gratified when they venture out onto the waterfront for supplies, and the stare that Vaan gives the sea pirate who approaches him again is icy.

"Right little snob, i'n't he?" the man mutters once Vaan is out of earshot.

Balthier gives him a cool look, and the man hurries off.

"I don't see _yer_ name on 'im."

* * *

><p>Raz fetches Balthier the following day and tells him that he is needed in Reddas' study.<p>

He hears footsteps in the corridor as he approaches the study. They falter when Vaan turns the corner and sees him.

The dark smudges under Vaan's eyes are even more pronounced now.

"Are you ill?" Balthier asks.

He sees Vaan's jaw ripple, and the man brushes past. "Leave me alone, Balthier."

"Pardon me, I'm sure," Balthier snaps before he can suppress it. "Far be it for me to show concern when you look half-dead."

Vaan whips around, and for a moment, Balthier thinks he is about to reach for his weapon.

"What are you two doing?" Penelo says as she slips past them and pushes open the door to the study.

There is a heavy silence before Vaan turns and follows Penelo into the room. "Nothing," he says through gritted teeth.

Ashe nods to them when they enter. Larsa sits at her side, quiet and composed but for the faint tapping of his fingers against the table and the distant frown on his face.

Balthier feels his hands twitch at the sight of Al-Cid Margrace on Ashe's other side. The man manages to lounge, even in a tall, straight-backed chair, and a stray curl falls over his dark glasses.

He sees Vaan hesitate, glancing at Larsa, before taking the seat across from Margrace instead.

"As we are all aware," Ashe says, looking at each of them in turn, "Larsa established the Council of Archades several years ago to take place of the dissolved Senate, yet it seemed as if the members, once trust-worthy citizens, immediately set into motion plans to wrest away control of Archadia. It seems they sought strength, and they wished to use that possessed by Vaan."

Vaan is staring down at his hands, clasped on the table before him.

"Through your efforts, we had managed to reclaim Archades, and Larsa replaced the... removed Council members with those known to be loyal."

Balthier glances at Ashe upon her pause, and she makes an apologetic grimace before continuing.

"Yet, within weeks, the situation seemed to worsen, and the new Council threatened Larsa in an attempt to force an attack on Giruvegan." Ashe leans back now, and she scowls. "The question is, what could this all mean?"

"Tch," Margrace says. "A most troubling situation."

"And one that is most obvious, I should hope," Balthier says, tilting his head to look at Margrace. "The Council is being controlled by an outside force that has access to all its members, new and old."

There is a twitch to Margrace's lips, and he inclines his head. "Just so," he says.

Balthier narrows his eyes.

"We must ask who it could be," Larsa says. "And why target Giruvegan? Why Archades?"

"Yes," Margrace says, leaning forward to tug off his dark glasses and pointing a corner of the eyepiece toward Vaan. "The interesting question is, of course, why our heroic young friend? What does he have to offer that those in control sought him out so fervently?"

Balthier watches Vaan raise his head to meet Margrace's half-lidded gaze.

* * *

><p>Balthier grows weary of Balfonheim before the month is out. The scent of the sea is thoroughly woven through the thread of his clothing, the coarse voices of the pirates grate upon his ears, and he looks up at the white clouds above and wishes for the sky.<p>

Ashe leaves them soon after the meeting, from which they derived more questions than answers, but Margrace stays. His aide hovers, and Balthier begins to grind his teeth when he hears the man's accented voice.

He is more often than not speaking to Vaan, who plays a childish game of avoidance, now, with both Larsa and Balthier.

It is offensively humid in the port town one night, and Balthier cannot explain the source of his agitation. He walks, hoping to find relief in the ocean breeze, and he does not hear the murmur of conversation before he rounds the corner and sees figures outlined in the soft light of burning lamps. He steps back quickly, without thinking, and then he recognizes the voices.

"...not exactly what I had in mind," Vaan is saying.

There is a husky chuckle, and Margrace speaks, his tongue curving even more around his words in his quiet. "Come with me."

"Where?"

"Relax, Vaan. You'll not need be so prickly."

There is a pause. "Is this another 'desert rose' joke?" Vaan says, and his voice is dry but amused.

Margrace laughs.

Balthier waits until the voices have moved and the footsteps are faded before he reaches out and smashes the vase standing on the table beside him.

Water slides underfoot as he walks out of the manse.

* * *

><p>Fran finds him in the Sochen Cave Palace, emptying his gun into the neck of a Wendigo.<p>

She says nothing, only crossing her arms and leaning against the wall behind her with muted clicking of her claws. She watches as Balthier feeds shot into the chamber of the Fomalhaut.

"You needn't say it," Balthier says shortly.

Fran tilts her head, her amber eyes unblinking.

"Yes, I knew full well the extent of the damage, and it was my choice. I have none other than myself to blame."

A Striker takes a shot to the jaw, and it shatters into an ugly mess before the beast falls on its back. Balthier treads on its limp arm as he passes. The smell of gunpowder is sharp in Balthier's nose.

"It was perhaps arrogant of me to assume that I could recover that part of him that the years seem to have stripped away. I can't even be sure that it resides still within him, or that he may wish for its retrieval. Perhaps it's easier, shutting the past away."

Balthier shoves his way through an ancient, creaking door.

"It was most certainly ridiculous of me to anticipate a reward for my efforts. Though perhaps a word of thanks would not have been remiss. It has only been months of my life spent on yet another quest to save Ivalice from the ravages of war. In fact, I quite enjoyed my stint in prison."

Balthier kills an Abysteel, its shriek near drowned out by the echo of his fire, and while it spirals down to the ground, there is the hard crunch and the metallic scent of ice magick.

Balthier looks around. Fran lowers her arm and regards him again, while the Imp that has tried to spit him from behind thumps down and bounces off a jagged rock.

Balthier pulls his brows tight together. "Oh Fran," he says quietly, "dear Fran. I have been such a fool."

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	12. That which is distant

12. **That which is distant**

Bal/Vaan - post-canon

Disclaimer still applies.

So yes, after it's all fallen apart, we begin to gather the pieces. I realize this story has been dragging, so speeding up will happen.**  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Balthier despises Hellhounds. They smell of blood, always, and the cold fire they wrap around their bodies freezes like the touch of fear. They shift like wraiths, and it is difficult to predict their movement pattern. He shoots one, but the rest of the pack paces around, glowing eyes trained upon him.<p>

There is a wet squelch, and Vaan makes a raw noise in his throat before darting by.

Balthier turns in time to see him ripping a Marlboro to shreds.

Golmore Jungle is dark, and it is only the movement of the Marlboro that gives them away. Balthier shoots the other one, creeping silently toward Vaan, and it bursts like an overripe peach, splashing foul liquid on the narrow path.

Balthier hisses then, pulling his arm back and sending drops of blood splattering to the ground from the claw marks scored into his skin.

The Hellhound growls deep, tensing itself to spring.

Suddenly, Vaan is a pale blur, tearing through the beasts, and Balthier pulls back sharply so that the shot flies wide overhead and knocks free wide, dark leaves. Amid the yelps and snarls, Fran stops beside Balthier, her long bow looped over an arm.

The leaves hit the ground with wet plops, and the path is silent but for Vaan's ragged breaths.

Vaan turns, and his eyes linger on the scratches on Balthier's arm before flicking to his face. Vaan stares for a long time before abruptly looking away.

* * *

><p>Mjrn's quiet greeting is positively jovial when compared to the distant gazes of the other Viera.<p>

"I hoped you would come," she says, nodding to them, but turning her eyes often to Fran.

"Of course," Fran says.

"Your summons did sound rather urgent." Balthier tucks his hands at his hip and smiles.

Mjrn flinches, shaking her head slightly, and she presses long fingers to a temple.

"The Wood?" Fran says, sharply.

Mjrn nods. "She fears." Her eyes round quickly, and she raises her hands. "Not of you, sister!" she says. "Ivalice is tight, unbalanced. The Mist clumps."

"Where? Why?" Penelo says, frowning.

"I... cannot say," Mjrn looks to the ground. "I am only in training, and the voice of the Wood comes scarcely to me."

"She speaks to Jote?" Fran glances about. Wood warders surround them, watching silently.

"She speaks of preservation." The Wood warders shift to allow Jote passage, and the Elder steps past the bristle of arrow fletches. "The Wood Viera concern themselves not with the Ivalice of humes."

"War shows scant respect for borders, I fear," Balthier says, placing a hand on Mjrn's thin shoulder.

The child nods, leaning forward. "Sister..." she says, earnestly.

Jote regards Mjrn for a long moment, and she closes her eyes, her sigh mingling with the breath of wind through the leaves. "East," she says, softly. "The Mist seethes." She looks sharply to Fran. "Go with care," she warns.

It is a dismissal. Balthier follows Penelo's light steps, but he pauses when Jote speaks again.

"Slow it is, but the Green Word changes." She is looking at Mjrn. "Time alters all."

Balthier feels the intruder, and he walks away.

He nearly does not hear Fran's voice.

"Thank you."

* * *

><p>"What lies east?" Balthier muses.<p>

He leans the barrel of the Fomalhaut against his shoulder, and he watches Vaan cleave through the ribs of a Diresaur with a heavy, two-handed strike. Even Penelo has ceased to offer her help as Vaan moves forward, seemingly determined to rid the Jungle of every manner of beast.

"The Ridorana Cataract?" Penelo says. "Could the Sun-Cryst be reformed?"

"No," Larsa says, halting his steps. "I know. It is Mount Bur-Omisace."

"The Kiltias?" Penelo says, bafflement in her tone.

Larsa paces, and he waves his arm in agitation. "How could have I not realized? There was a pilgrimage. As a gesture of reconciliation, high-ranking members of the Archadian government were to travel to Mount Bur-Omisace to witness the aftermath of Archades' folly. I could not attend only because my leg had not yet healed enough to walk, and Vaan stayed with me." Larsa looks at Balthier, his face pale and blank. "Every member of the Council went to Mount Bur-Omisace."

"It is settled, then," Fran says. "We fly to the Mount."

Vaan does not hear Penelo's call until she pulls hard on his swordarm.

* * *

><p>Balthier locks the controls of the Strahl, satisfied that when he looks out, he sees only the faint shimmer of her cloaking field.<p>

The Rift is white with snow around them, and Balthier feels the chill in his fingers. The clouds begin to break, though, and he sees the light of the moon cutting through the sky. Balthier stands, stretching out his stiff back. He crosses his ship, and he has pulled open the door to his cabin before he sees the figure stretched out on the floor under the narrow strip of glass that arches over the Strahl's tail.

He halts, and he begins to hear the soft stream of words.

"...bet you would know what to do, huh? You always know what's right, remember? You were always there to tell me to put whatever I stole back. Especially after Mom and Dad died. You remember?"

There is a long pause, and Balthier thinks Vaan has fallen asleep. He wonders if Penelo is there to nudge him and send him to bed.

"I thought you would get better, I really did. I thought I would be a soldier like you."

Balthier realizes that Vaan is speaking to the stars. He pulls the door to his cabin shut behind him gently, so that it does not click.

Balthier does not sleep that night, and he blames the headache.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	13. That which touches

13. **That which touches**

Balthier/Vaan - post-canon

Disclaimers still apply.

Sorry, took the weekend off for Homecoming.

Pseudo-summary: So yes, all bets have been off for a little while, now that Balthier and Vaan are no longer on easy speaking terms. Balthier certainly doesn't know what's really going on (although he knows what he sees), and it wouldn't be fair for us to know more than he does.

* * *

><p>Balthier considers the list of things he does not like. Desert heat features prominently, as does the biting cold of Mount Bur-Omisace. Small children with sticky hands.<p>

At the moment, he cannot think of anything he dislikes more than foppish Rozarrian princelings.

Margrace waits for them at the foot of the mountain, and he blathers something about his "little birds" when Penelo, taken aback, asks him how he knew to come. There is a sharp edge to Penelo's voice, and Balthier does not bother to hide his smirk. He shrugs when Fran raises a pale brow.

Margrace walks beside Vaan, his dark hair whipping over his head, and Balthier cannot hear what they are saying over the constant wind that puts an ache in his ears and erodes his nerves fibre by fibre.

* * *

><p>The Nu Mou are quiet and suspicious, and they do not speak beyond the trite blessings in the name of Faram.<p>

The Kiltias are hospitable as ever, and they house the travellers in warm rooms. They beg patience, and say that they require time to consult with the senior Acolytes.

Balthier thinks an uncharitable thought about the Father of Light when the days stretch out, and he sits before the open window often, dissembling and cleaning his gun with soft cloths and oils.

He sees Vaan often, standing under the open sky with Margrace. There is a tension still to Vaan's shoulders, but he sees Vaan smile. Balthier does not turn away when Vaan glances up suddenly and sees him watching. Vaan's eyes are bright against the trodden snow around him. The contact only breaks when Margrace touches Vaan's shoulder and gestures him away.

It is after the Strahl sighs under his hands and the sky arches above his head that Balthier unclenches his teeth.

* * *

><p>Balthier tells the petitioner a false name, and he takes a hunt in the Paramina Rift.<p>

He blinks when Fran flicks an ear without looking up from the musty tome cradled in her hands.

"I have not desire to participate," she says. But then she glances up as if she finds an idea. "Perhaps you hunt with Vaan. He grows more restless with each passing day. Inactivity suits him little more than it does you."

Balthier is forcibly reminded just how much she sees and hears.

"I should hope that I am well capable of handling a simple hunt alone," Balthier says, and he turns, and he stops.

Vaan stands before him, something tentative in his eyes, and Balthier realizes they have been speaking again, he and Fran.

He decides that his distaste for the itches of confusion rivals perhaps even that for Margrace.

* * *

><p>The Mark is a monstrous Garuda-Egi, hardened and vicious with age. Strings of venom hang from its crooked claws, tangling in the blackened trees below.<p>

Balthier loads Dark Shot into the Fomalhaut, and his first two attacks shred the diver's wings. The last shatters the reptilian skull.

He glances back at Vaan, who leans the Zodiac Spear in the snow and wraps an arm around it before tilting his head gently. The silence is suffocated by the falling snow until it is as if the sky is siphoning away the sound, and Balthier frowns.

"If you had no intention of pulling your weight, I confess to incomprehension concerning your motives in following me on this hunt," Balthier says, somewhat stiffly.

There is a flicker that may be a smile, but it is gone before Balthier can identify it.

"Did you need help?" Vaan says.

Balthier rolls his eyes and turns away.

* * *

><p>The blizzard comes upon them suddenly, white flurries whipping on the winds.<p>

Balthier closes his eyes against the stinging ice, and he leans against the gale. The snow shifts and slips underfoot. Balthier covers his mouth with a hand, creating a pocket of calm air in which he can breathe, and he wishes for nothing more than to summon Belias and level the bloody mountain with Hellfire.

Balthier's hand quickly numbs, and he flexes it.

There is a stomach-twisting moment in which his boot treads on thin air, but before he can fall, cold hands wrap around his wrists and warm breath brushes over his neck.

"We have to find shelter if we don't want to get frostbite," Vaan shouts in his ear.

Balthier nods. He has forgotten Vaan's scent, he realizes. He leans into the heat.

"This cannot be natural," Balthier says through gritted teeth. He cracks his eye open, and in the white blur, he sees Vaan twisting his head around.

"Hold on," Vaan says. "I think I see something."

Then, Vaan is gone, and the cold is sharper than ever. It is so bright that Balthier sees red when he closes his eyes. There is motion ahead, and Balthier staggers as he steps forward.

A curious warmth seeps over his feet and rises up his legs until it envelopes him. Balthier cannot tell if he still moves, but he breathes in, and the heat swims through his lungs into his blood. His eyelids become too heavy to bear, and he lets them drift shut.

Suddenly, there are cold fingers digging into his arms and a hoarse voice shouting in his face.

"Balthier!"

Balthier tries to tug away, back into the warm.

"Balthier, wake up! It's Leshach! Balthier, it cast Sleepga, and if you sleep now, you'll never wake up, so, _Balthier_!"

The cold hands strike his face, and Balthier gathers the remnants of his control. He bites hard into the side of his cheek.

Hot blood floods his mouth, and Balthier winces. He is dizzy, and he feels himself sway, but he can see Vaan's red, snow-burned eyes, and he nods. He draws on his magick, and the tight sensation of lightning crackles down his fist like tiny pins.

Vaan is rushing forward, spear extended out in a thrust, and lightning arcs, skittering over the electrum in the Entite's core.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	14. That which learns

14. **That which learns**

Bal/Vaan - post-canon

Disclaimers still apply.

Gah, I've got to stop rambling before these things. I keep giving shit away. Anyway. A lot is revealed, this time.

* * *

><p>"Bwaaah!"<p>

The sound is loud and grating, and Balthier turns his head sharply. He swipes absently at the dribble of blood that leaks down his chin. The blizzard dies suddenly, once Leshach is disabled, and only shifting piles of snow scored by the clawing wind remain.

Balthier sees a mound shudder, far too much to be due to the settling of ice, and he raises his gun quickly. Snow bursts out, arcing damply in the air and clinging stickily to murky green scales.

"I thought I was dead for sure!"

Balthier groans, and the Fomalhaut drops heavily to his shoulder. "Oh, not you again."

"Balthier!"

Ba'Gamnan fumbles about the snow, digging his hands under the churned white. He freezes when the tip of the Zodiac Spear nudges his shoulder, and he stands slowly, still without a weapon.

"What are you doing here?" Vaan says, and his voice is hard. "I thought you were going to vanish yourself."

"I was. I am. Just... passing through. For perfectly legitimate reasons."

Ba'Gamnan's growl is oddly muted, and the Bangaa darts quick looks at Vaan, who makes an impatient noise in his throat before pulling his spear back. Vaan walks a short distance away before pausing, and he leans down to brush at the ragged snow underfoot.

The deference Ba'Gamnan shows is puzzling, and Balthier frowns.

"You fear him," he says. "You knew him when he worked with the Empire?"

Ba'Gamnan bares his teeth, his eyes slitted and wild. Balthier raises a brow, tapping his weapon gently against his collar, and Ba'Gamnan glares, but he subsides.

"Yes," Ba'Gamnan says, and it is a curt grunt.

"He captured you?"

"Hmph," Ba'Gamnan says, shaking snow from a clawed foot. "At first, yes. Then he helped me escape."

"Escape?" Balthier is truly surprised. "From Nalbina?"

Ba'Gamnan laughs, a coarse and guttural sound. "Nalbina! Ha! No, the price on my head was too large for Nalbina. They put me in the Pits, in the broken part of Archades. I was to fight for their entertainment until either I defeat a gauntlet or die." He shrugs. "It's how Bwagi and Rinok died. Then they tell me a Judge is going to take my place, and the boy massacres the fiends kept in the Pit Arena, pulls me out while those nobles are still scratching their heads. He tells me to go. Take Gijuk, and go."

Balthier stares. His jaw slackens, Ba'Gamnan shuffles restlessly, and he can only stare.

Ba'Gamnan grunts again. "Well, if that's all, I have got better things to do with my time than speaking with a bounty I cannot claim."

Ba'Gamnan turns away, trudging through the snow and swiping through mounds with his ponderous tail.

Vaan looks up when Balthier approaches. His eyes flick to Balthier, and away again.

"It was wrong," he says, his voice quiet but hard. "The Pits, the way they treated their prisoners. It was wrong."

He is cupping something that glitters and gleams in his hand, and it catches Balthier's eye.

Vaan's fingers tighten around the Leshach Halcyon, and he tucks it into a pouch. "Penelo would want it," he says by way of explanation. He tilts his head to look up at the peak of the Mount.

Balthier laughs.

He cannot do anything but laugh. He laughs for his folly, his regrets, his realization, his relief. He laughs until his stomach clenches and hysteria creeps in. He thinks he is going mad.

"Vaan," he says, finally, and his voice is hoarse and his mouth is twisted with too many thoughts. "You have been Vaan, all along."

The confused frown slowly clears, and Vaan looks at him with understanding. There is a crooked smile.

"Oh," Vaan says. His eyes are bright, even under the rubor of irritation from the lashing snow. "Yes. I know. It's something I've only realized recently, myself, after—" His voice cuts off abruptly, and he looks at Balthier hesitantly.

Balthier's jaw clicks with the force with which he shuts it.

_After. Thanks to Margrace_.

The words hang in the air, huge and unspoken.

He looks at Vaan, and he sees the pale eyes shutter.

"We should go back," Vaan says. His hand rests on Balthier's shoulder for a moment, friendly. Polite. Vaan turns away.

* * *

><p>Margrace tells them that he has arranged an audience with the senior Acolytes, and Balthier is gracious as he nods his thanks. He does not speak as he leads them to the Hall of Light, and he does not listen to the soft voice as Margrace addresses Vaan.<p>

He sees the distant looks the Kiltias give them, and a chill gathers in his gut.

"But why?" Larsa says, his voice high and thin, sounding a child again. "You who have always espoused peace. Why would you propose a war on Giruvegan?"

"It is the will of the gods," says an Acolyte. "They have appeared before us, and their command is clear." He touches his fingers together and closes his eyes. "Faram."

"What gods?" Fran says slowly.

"The High Pantheon." It is Ivaness who speaks, and Balthier looks, and he frowns. He sees the flinches to Ivaness's gentle eyes. Flickers of confusion dart over his face before the placid conviction returns. "They are led by the beautiful goddess on wings of glimmering gold."

Vaan inhales sharply, and he glances at Balthier, his eyes narrowed. "Ultima," he says, quietly.

"The Scions of Darkness," Balthier murmurs, nodding slightly. His hand clasps over Vaan's wrist, so tight that his fingers are white. He raises his voice. "Well, now, this has been quite an honour. I'm terribly glad that we've had the chance to have this talk, but so sorry, we must go." He tugs, and they begin to back away. Larsa's face is pale as he follows. "Please rest at ease; we can see ourselves out."

"If you ally not with the gods," Ivaness says, hollowly, as if he has not heard Balthier's speech, "then you are against us."

The Kiltias begin to stand, eyes agleam as if lit from within.

Balthier glances around at the worried faces surrounding him.

"Balthier," Fran says, a soft hiss.

He nods. "We run."

Balthier ignores the shouts behind them, putting out a hand to shove past a man who reaches for him as he runs past. "They are controlled by the same force as the Council members," he says through harsh breaths, taking the steps in pairs. "It does fit together nicely." He glances at Penelo. "You said the Council only recruited Vaan's services once they became aware that he had defeated an Occurian in the past. And who else would hold a deeper grudge against the Occuria than the servants they defeated and sealed?"

Penelo nods, and Larsa gives him a pained look.

The uproar spreads, and Vaan is there to block a swipe of a pole toward Balthier's head. He wrenches it away from the Kiltias with enough force that the man stumbles and loses his feet.

"They'll send soldiers after us," Vaan says, warning tight in his voice.

"Let them," Balthier says, and he looks sharply to Vaan. "Or would you kill them all?"

Vaan flinches, but he does not respond.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	15. That which knows

15. **That which knows**

Balthier/Vaan - post-canon

Disclaimers still apply.

Another quite short interlude and a less depressing one. Sorry, I've changed this one because I really wasn't satisfied with the previous version. The general flow of events doesn't change, just the wording, when I edit, so it's not necessary to reread.

* * *

><p>Balthier hides the Strahl in the Estersand and remembers the Aerodrome fondly.<p>

He checks the anchor, tugging at the mooring sharply, and he sees a flicker of light.

Vaan sits on the steps leading to the Barheim passage. He holds his sword loosely in his hand and leans it against his knee. It catches the sun as he twists it, and he stares down at it, flashes of its reflection touching his face.

Balthier wonders what new morose thought he sees on the blade's surface.

There is a Tiny Bug snapping at Vaan's feet, raking ineffectually at the plate over his heel, and he raises his sword, tilting it so that the edge will catch the monster's glittering carapace when it drops. He pauses.

It is slight, but Balthier sees the widening of his eyes.

Vaan lowers the sword and nudges the Tiny Bug aside as he stands.

* * *

><p>Imperial soldiers patrol Rabanastre for the first time in six years, and Balthier catches sharp looks. He crosses his arms and glances around with a disdainful twist to his mouth, and he feels their watchful eyes.<p>

Margrace offers to bring them to the palace, but Vaan shakes his head and says they are too large and diverse a crowd to avoid attention. The man tsks and smiles, tilting his head to regard Vaan over his dark glasses.

Balthier turns away, stepping into the shadows laying down the dusty steps to Lowtown.

The Dalmascans ignore him, and Balthier tilts his head back. He looks at the grime overhead and he exhales.

* * *

><p>Balthier shoots a Lizard in its bulbous breast. He grimaces when it bursts and sends foul-scented ooze sliding into the water channel by its side.<p>

The sound of rushing water is loud, and it slops over Balthier's boot when he stops walking.

Penelo is standing still, looking back the way they came.

Balthier turns, and he sees the stiff set to Larsa's shoulders and the dark scowl to his face. When he speaks, it is through clenched teeth.

Vaan lowers his head, but he shakes it.

They are alike, Balthier thinks, in their stubbornness.

"Leave them be," he says, quietly.

Penelo's eyes are dark, but she smiles, and it is warm. "Yeah, they'll be fine."

* * *

><p>Ashe is waiting for them when they exit the Garamsythe Waterway, Margrace at her side, and her lips twitch as she says that the rats are growing frightfully in size over the years.<p>

Penelo laughs, and Vaan shrugs damply, dripping still from the Water Elemental that had taken offense at his passing.

"How fares Dalmasca?" Balthier says.

The thought is sobering, and Ashe furrows her brow. "Well as can be," she says. "We avert hostilities through promises of aid in the capture of the assassins—" here she gives them a hard look "—but Rozarria..."

"The Empire is as it always has been," Margrace says, flicking a fast hand. "It looks too eagerly upon war. I, of course, agree little with such policies, and I do my part, my lady."

Ashe inclines her head. "Although Dalmasca remains safe, even under scrutiny, it is you who must take care. The soldiers searching for you are close to an Imperial fleet in number. Can you be sure of yourself?"

Balthier raises his brows.

Ashe gives him a dry look. "There are times in which even the leading man must take caution. Where do you go now?"

"Giruvegan." It is Larsa who answers. "The Occuria cannot be unaware of the plots of the Scions of Darkness. They will tell us where to seek out the Scions." He pauses, and he frowns. "I will stay in Rabanastre," he says, after a moment. "I may be able to help with negotiations in a hidden capacity."

Ashe turns surprised eyes from Larsa to Vaan. The man shrugs, his shoulder barely brushing Larsa's.

* * *

><p>Mist hums through Balthier's hands as he twists the skystone brackets back into the Strahl's glossair engine. He wipes congealed magickal residue from his fingers onto a heavy rag, and he touches the burnished metal fondly.<p>

"I've asked a lot of you, lately," he murmurs. "Are you ready for another trip, girl?"

The Strahl's purr deepens a moment, and he reads her response in the energy that seeps through her frame.

Boots clank over the panelling of the floor in the engine room, and Balthier glances up.

Vaan stands crookedly, his hands slipped into his pockets and one shoulder dipped in a slouch. Balthier wonders briefly how the man was ever able to adhere to the stiff formalities of an Imperial Judge, and he imagines strict sessions upon etiquette. The thought makes him smile.

Vaan tilts his head, and slowly, he smiles back.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	16. That which seeks

16. **That which seeks**

Balthier/Vaan - post-canon

Disclaimer still applies.

Finally, some action. An apology to anyone who has noticed that I keep changing the parts that are already published. I can't help but mess around with this story until I'm completely satisfied with it. It's the things that we love best that give us the most grief, yes? The overall flow doesn't change, so the story remains the same and there's no need to reread.

* * *

><p>"For some odd reason, I can't quite shake the idea that we are no longer welcome here," Balthier says. He widens his stance, firing upon the faceless bulk of Daedalus.<p>

"Hm," Fran says, and there is a hint of amusement in her voice. Her arrows bite into the gaps between pieces of the guardian's armour, and it shifts back. "Perhaps we lack the Queen."

"I dare say she wouldn't be too popular now, either."

The sharp spits of a Dispel staggers it for a moment, and Vaan rushes forward, the Zodiac Spear crushing through breastplate and stone.

Daedalus sags, and Balthier pulls his arm back, resting the Fomalhaut on his shoulder.

There is quiet, broken by the gulps for breath, until Penelo gasps, and it is almost a shriek.

Daedalus looms over Vaan, its sword held up in preparation for a crushing cleave, and the Zodiac Spear remains imbedded in its chest.

Balthier's shot strikes at the ruptured edges of armour around the spear. The guardian jerks, again and again, as Balthier fires without respite. Stone chips fly, faster and faster, until Daedalus crumbles from the centre of its torso, cracks spreading outward, and dust flies into the air.

Blood thrums in Balthier's ear as he eyes the pile of rubble and armour, awaiting any further sign of movement.

"This was no test," Fran says into the silence, her voice solemn. "It meant to kill us or face destruction in trying."

Balthier nods. "Let's do be careful."

* * *

><p>Balthier ignores the images playing upon the roiling mist as he walks.<p>

He sees a bespectacled face, peering down on him indulgently, and his hand clenches around his weapon.

"Balthier."

The warning is quiet, and Fran glances at him sharply. Balthier loosens his grip, letting the gun fall to his side, and he walks away from the spectre.

* * *

><p>The light surrounds him, cold and white, and his boots echo as he paces a slow circle. The thrones sit still and silent, and Balthier feels the oppression, sinking down on his shoulders.<p>

"Are they here?" Penelo asks, her voice a whisper.

"I can't see them," Vaan says.

Balthier shares a glance with Fran, and he raises his voice. "Occuria! We have need to speak with you!"

His words reflect back to him, fading and muddling.

He waits for several moments more. "For those who term themselves gods, you certainly have not the control over your servants one would expect." Balthier tenses his shoulders, ignoring the sharp look Vaan sends him and Fran's murmur about goading them perhaps being unwise.

The voice that replies is quick and cracked with age.

"We have no wish to treat with you, arrant hume. The Undying speak not to those who wallow in the breakers of chaotic hist'ry."

It echoes, seemingly originating from each point around them. Balthier looks, but he does not see anything. "Come now. We come as potential allies and think little of old grudges."

"_Allies._"

Mist roars, twisting and buffeting as violent gales.

The voice does not shout. It does not need to, carried by the blasts of Mist. "Presume you that we ally with those who, with every thought and delib'ration, cut themselves free of the trappings of order?"

Balthier braces himself, crouching slightly to keep his feet. He turns hurriedly to see Fran's tilt and buckle. He catches her in his arms, curling a protective hand over her elbow, and he supports her weight with his as the voice continues, spite clinging to its every word.

"You humes, ever short-sighted, yet possessed of such conceit that you spurn the ageless wisdom of we the Occuria. You covet the power of proffered Cryst, reaping but never sowing, destroying all that you understand not. A sinister baffle in the pattern of time."

"It's_ you_ the Scions of Darkness are targeting!" Vaan shouts over the tumult. "Don't you think it would be beneficial for you if we stopped them?"

Dead calm descends as if the air is siphoned away.

Space ripples before Balthier's eyes, and the weaves of white like swirled feathers take shape. It hovers, glowing, recessed eyes fixed on Vaan.

"Son of Dalmasca, who so oft strays from his path," it says, drifting closer, "in your lack of adherence you may yet find power to cut free the Scions. Provident it is that you fall ever outside the weave." It pauses, as if thinking. "Very well. The Scions use men of Ivalice, knowing that those reside no longer within the bounds of author'ty. Through possession of sons of man they gain power to resist their summons. Perhaps you may cut them away and bring them eternal peace."

"Cut them?" Vaan's brow furrows. "Is there a sword I'm to use?"

"Your sword lies without our dominion."

Mist flickers again as it begins to fade, and Vaan reaches out a hand. "Wait! Where are they? The Scions?"

"Where they hide. In the place where once housed the Sword of Kings, blade of the Dynast King."

* * *

><p>Balthier looks ahead into the pale of the horizon as the Strahl streaks through the air.<p>

He thinks briefly that it is somewhat ridiculous having travelled this distance only to find that their destination is the same as their origin, but Fran is pale still from the Occurian's temper tantrum and not present to share his bemusement, and so he lets the thought slip away. They take the curve of the land as their guide, and they travel the silent airspace above Jagd Difohr. Mist approaches the Strahl with tentative fingers, but curls away in the eddies trailing their passage.

Vaan reaches out from where he sits in the co-pilot's seat, and he taps the keys that cause a minute adjustment in the tilt of the Strahl's left wing. There is a gentle shift, and a sense of weightlessness.

Balthier listens to the smooth flow of wind over the Strahl's nose as she soars.

The sun is rising, setting the cusp of arcing land and sky ablaze with streaks of crimson.

Vaan is quiet by his side, his breath soft and even, and they fly.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	17. That which breaches

17. **That which breaches**

Balthier/Vaan - post-canon

Disclaimers still apply.

I feel like I should warn you that this is where it gets weird. But tension can't last forever before someone snaps, right? Also, I cannot cut down action scenes to save my life. The pictures in my head just take over.

* * *

><p>The Strahl coasts low over the Paramina Rift, and the blood, visible from the cockpit, is splashed red against the snow.<p>

"Refugees," Fran says tersely, looking down at the scene.

They cannot yet hear the screams, but Balthier sees a woman fall to her knees and raise her hands before the Imperial soldier's sword spits through her chest. "What odds would you give that they search for us?" he says. He twists the controls under his hands, sending the ship in a tight downward spiral.

The Strahl halts and hovers, pushing a blast of pressure downward that raises blinding billows of snow.

Balthier hears the hatch slide open to a roar of wind and tapping footsteps vanish in a running leap.

He curses. "Always bloody rushing in."

* * *

><p>The slashing motions of the curved sword Balthier carries feel unwieldy in his hand. He throws his weight forward into a parry, twisting around and cutting deep into the base of the soldier's knee. The shriek is cut off when the man falls low enough to facilitate a heavy boot to the head.<p>

Balthier sees another survivor, and he pulls the youth up by his shaking arm. "It would be best if you moved out of the way," he says, tugging the boy along as he steps back toward the shelter of a towering cliff face. "There's a good lad." He fears his voice is more brusque than soothing, but judging by the vacant terror in the boy's eyes, he hears nothing in any case.

There is a snarling soldier rushing toward them, sword swinging down in a heavy stroke, and Balthier catches the blow on his blade. The impact numbs his fingers and throws the soldier off balance, so Balthier lets his sword tumble to the ground, closing his fist to send it slamming into the soldier's face. The crunch of breaking bone and the slippery sensation of blood on his fingers, seeping into the recesses around his rings, is unpleasant.

"Tch." Balthier unholsters his gun, bracing it ready against his shoulder, and he looks about.

Vaan rips through the soldiers like a berserked Twintania, moving too quickly to be caught.

More Imperials lie still on the ground than remain standing, and they hesitate, caution in their stances as they exchange glances.

One, a Hoplite in armour, raises a hand and points.

"Capture the girl!"

Balthier thinks he derives perhaps too much enjoyment from the instances in which others underestimate Penelo.

He watches her whirl and yell, the mace she wields swinging in wide arcs that seem weighted and slow. It is always where she desires it to be, though, and Balthier winces as it catches one soldier in the side of the head and lifts him fully off his feet.

A man stumbles back, face twisted in confusion, and Balthier takes the opportunity to slam the butt of his gun into the soldier's skull when he falls into reach.

It is over soon, and Balthier glances to Vaan, eyes skipping over the stains on the ground. His breath catches.

Vaan is staring at the last soldier, and the light of bloodlust is high in his eyes, gleaming vividly. The soldier is motionless, holding the point of his sword to Vaan's throat. Balthier feels his jaw tighten until it creaks, and he sees Vaan sway forward, leaning into the blade.

Balthier has put shot through the soldier's head before he realizes his movement, and Penelo is shouting, running, and she slams into Vaan hard enough to send him tumbling to the ground.

"Stop it, just stop it!" she screams. She thumps her joined fists down into Vaan's chest, and he coughs harshly. "Stop it, Vaan! I know it's my fault! I know you have to be strong because I need you. I needed you so much that you haven't had a chance to even mourn, but Vaan! Vaan, _please_! I'm sorry! Stop doing this to yourself! Stop punishing yourself! I know you want to cry for Tomaj, and Filo, and Kytes, for everyone that we couldn't save along the way, but you think you can't. Why do you have to be alone all the time? Vaan, I really want to stop being selfish, but they're gone. They're all gone. And I just can't lose you, too! So Vaan, please, just _stop it_!"

Penelo buries her face in the side of Vaan's neck, and Vaan stares up at the sky, eyes wide.

Balthier thinks he should leave.

The wide, hoarse sobs do not abate, and Penelo's shoulders shake from the force with which she clenches her hands in Vaan's shirt. Vaan's lips part, and he raises a slow hand.

"Pen," he says, and his voice cracks. "Hey, Pen, stop. You're not selfish." He presses his palm over her head. "Don't cry. I'm sorry. It's okay."

Vaan's eyes flick to Balthier and away again.

It cannot be anything but a plea for privacy, and he turns away abruptly. He wonders if he is to take the refugees to safety now, and he wonders, with chagrin, when he had begun thinking like the hero-complexes that surround him. But first, there are dead to bury.

* * *

><p>"What ails you?"<p>

Balthier looks up from the hasty graves the refugees have erected, heavy stones laid flat to shield the dead from scavengers.

"Can't say I know what you mean," he says. "I'm perfectly fine."

"You mope," Fran says calmly.

"I most certainly do not."

Fran watches him, wine red eyes unblinking, and Balthier is resigned when he capitulates.

"The fight will be difficult."

"You fear?"

"Perhaps." Balthier looks up at the darkening sky. "Should I?"

"To live is to fear. To fly is to live despite the fear." Fran shifts, touching a hand to her shoulder, where Balthier knows a rough scar marks the area injured by fallen debris on the Bahamut. "You do not doubt often."

"Of course. It does not fall within the bounds of the role." Balthier frowns down at the graves, and his next words come slowly. "It's odd, isn't it. For a self-proclaimed leading man to accomplish so little."

"I think yours is more of a supporting role."

"Yes, you've said." Balthier grimaces at Fran, and he catches the quirk of amusement in her eyes. "Haven't accomplished much there, either. I set out to—who knows what—save Vaan, perhaps, and in the end, it's Penelo who reaches him. I'm not surprised, mind you. I wasn't there with them during these past six years. But I thought I could do something."

"Have you not?"

"I'm sure it hasn't escaped your notice that it is his lover who has recovered his sense of self-worth these past weeks. For all that is distasteful about Margrace, I suppose we do owe him that." He pauses, raising his brows. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Al-Cid Margrace is not Vaan's lover."

Balthier is quiet for a long moment. "How do you know that?"

"Partially, my eyes cloud not with jealousy. Mostly, because Vaan tells me so."

Balthier blinks against the wind, which whips snow up and into his face. "But—"

"Balthier," Fran interrupts. "Perhaps you should speak to him yourself."

* * *

><p>Vaan's eyes are turned inward when he pulls himself aboard the Strahl, and his thoughts do not show on his face.<p>

He does not notice Balthier watching.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	18. That which converges

18. **That which converges**

Balthier/Vaan - post canon

Disclaimers still apply.

Nothing to say really. It's almost over.

* * *

><p>The Silverflow reflects moonlight outside the Strahl. It hovers, its shadow indistinct on the snow, and Balthier scrubs his hand over his face and tells his passengers to rest.<p>

He sits under the brightest lamp to dissemble his gun, and he remembers Penelo laying her head in Vaan's lap and rubbing at the tear tracks on her cheeks.

He sees the smile on her face, though, as they speak of hunting rats in the Garamsythe Waterway, snatching ripe starfruit from irate vendors, and braving sandstorms to bring back Sky Jewels dropped in the mouth of the Zertinan Caverns.

Balthier too remembers the children, Filo and Kytes, but he recalls little more than too much energy and too many questions, and so he excuses himself.

He runs his cloths over the smooth barrel of his gun as he listens to the quiet hum of his ship, and he thinks of a mummer's farce he viewed as a child, about a hero who spoke wild tales of his exploits and could not slay the dragon. It had been funny, then.

* * *

><p>Balthier thinks he sees the wrong side of sunrise too often of late. He presses the heel of his palm into his eyes, the Strahl dim and quiet around him, and he glances up sharply when the hatch descends.<p>

Vaan's steps are quiet on the metal slats, and he pauses when he sees Balthier. There is an awkward shift to his stance.

There are red abrasions on his fingers, tracing his knuckles, and Balthier frowns.

He walks into the cold stillness and churned snow outside.

Balthier does not know what he expects to see, but the compulsion to look moves him before he can wonder. There are scratches on the largest of the stones covering the graves. They do not make words, but they are familiar. Balthier places them a moment later, and he turns to look back at the Strahl, her gate still swung open and revealing muted light within.

It is thief-sign, the simple pictogram that indicates safe-house.

* * *

><p>Vaan avoids his eyes for the rest of the morning, a deep crease between his brows as if he puzzles, and Balthier tells himself to focus. The Stilshrine of Miriam spreads under the cliff the Strahl settles upon, and his companions are sombre when Balthier turns to face them.<p>

"We do not know what we expect to find, so tread carefully. Keep together." Balthier nods to Vaan. "Vaan, you take point. Remember, it would be best if we attempt to isolate the enemy and remove them one by one."

Fran inclines her head, and Penelo tightens her fist around her battle pole.

"Let's go in," Balthier says.

Machinery slides smoothly, and the hatch of the Strahl descends, tapping lightly to the ground outside.

Balthier does not notice Vaan's steps slowing until he has lagged behind, and he turns around.

"Balthier," he says.

Fran and Penelo step out onto the snow, stamped down with the pressure of the Strahl's descent, and Balthier pauses, watching Vaan in the filtered light from the door.

Vaan stares at him, brow furrowed, and his jaw is tight.

He waits, but he hears only the scratching of the wind, and Balthier shakes his head. "Vaan, if you're worried that this is goodbye, I'll have you remember that my role is not yet obsolete in this little production. I'll not do anything reckless."

Vaan gives him a pained look, and he steps forward.

There are fingers twisted around Balthier's collar and a mouth pressed hard against his. Balthier inhales sharply, the surprise being so much that he cannot do anything but press back, tasting the warmth of sun mixed with the bitterness of desperation. He makes a noise in the back of his throat, and he raises his hands, reaching out to cup Vaan's jaw.

Vaan pulls back before his fingers make contact, and his lips brush over Balthier's mouth as he speaks.

"I know."

Balthier dimly registers that his shallow breaths do nothing to ease the lightness in his head and the twists to his vision.

"Vaan, hurry up!" It is Penelo who calls, outside in the Silverflow.

Vaan's lips are reddened when he tightens them, and there are heavy spots of colour over his cheeks. He nods sharply to Balthier before he darts away.

* * *

><p>The Dead Bones showers Balthier with dry debris when its skull shatters under his shot.<p>

He grits his teeth against the leaden sensation travelling slowly through his limbs, and his arm resists the movement when he raises his hand to gather his magick. There is a grey sheen to his skin that smothers in increments.

The tingling of Esuna sweeps through him, washing away the stiffness, and Balthier exhales. He cancels his own spell to raise his gun instead. He catches Fran's eye, and he nods his thanks.

Zalera spins around, dragging the Shamaness with him. Her head lolls and drops to his winged shoulder with a low moan. He is silent, the rictus of his skull malevolent in its bleak rage. He jerks, a streak of blackened blood arcing to the ground, when Vaan slashes hard into his side. The Shamaness screeches, then, a grating sound that makes Balthier's teeth vibrate, and he concentrates healing magick. He is ready when Penelo shudders and sags to the ground.

As Vaan stabs his sword deep into the folds of the cape lining the Death Seraph's back, Balthier narrows his eyes and fires, his shots ringing in succession. Zalera sheds ribbons of dry flesh and rotten fluids.

* * *

><p>The summon crest hangs in the air, its curves unpleasantly organic in their glisten. It spins slowly, encased in crystal.<p>

"What now?" Balthier says, pressing a hand against a leaking gash in his shoulder. It knits together with the burn of magick.

"The Occurian said that the weapon that Vaan would need is beyond their control, didn't he?" Penelo is inspecting the crest.

Fran drums long fingers over the arch of the Sagittarius, and she looks down at the fletch in her hand as she thinks. "On failure to adhere to woven path the Occurian spoke long," she says, slowly. "Perhaps it is Vaan who is beyond their control." She pauses. "I hear it speak, the crest."

Balthier listens, and there are no words, but he looks, and the crest is beautiful. His gun feels weighted.

"I can't hear anything," Vaan says.

Vaan looks down at the sword in his hand. The Durandal looks heavy and hardly gleams in the dim, the intricate moldings blurred. He raises it over his head, clasping it in both hands, and the shield strapped to his arm glints.

When the crest shatters, the flash of light burns afterimages into Balthier's eyes. There is a quiet sigh, a calm soft in Zalera's voice.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	19. That which ends

19. **That which ends**

Balthier/Vaan - post-canon

Disclaimer still applies.

You know how I said I can't cut down on action sequences? Yeah...

This is pretty cliché, huh? But have you ever had the sense that a story is present in its fully complete form somewhere out there, _in potentia_, and you're really just the medium it is passing through?

* * *

><p>Eleven crests vanish in blinding light, and Balthier's breath begins to burn in his throat. He leans back against a wall, looking up at a tangled cobweb in the corner next to him, and he tries to swallow past the raw edges he feels.<p>

"Balthier."

He takes the water skin offered. The water is icy and sends pain shooting into his palate, but he holds it in his mouth and lets trickles seep down his throat. "Thanks," he says, and he hears the rasp to his voice.

Vaan nods, glancing around the barren corridor. The twists of the maze are silent. Penelo sinks to the ground, breathing heavily, and she leans her weapon against her knees. Fran looks about, bow ready and eyes alert, but Balthier can see the tightness to her jaw.

"Vaan..."

Penelo's voice is hesitant, and Balthier looks up.

He sees Vaan, half-shut eyes fixed on the palm of his hand, where Balthier remembers calluses roughen the skin. Vaan inhales, and his eyes flick up.

"I'm okay," he says, and he laces his hands behind his head when he smiles. It is small, but it crinkles his eyes.

Balthier looks down at his own fingers, and they are crusted and scraped, but they feel light.

"Who's left?" Vaan says.

Balthier heaves himself up and away from the wall, ignoring the protest in his knees. The sound of the clicks as he checks his gun is loud. "Ultima," he says.

He sees Vaan's shoulders tense, and his lips tighten. "We've searched everywhere, though. Could we have missed her somewhere along the way?"

"The hidden room," Penelo says suddenly. "We haven't checked the place where we fought Zeromus for the first time."

"Ah," Balthier says, a smile on his face that he does not feel for the chill in his gut. "Of course. Lead the way."

* * *

><p>Holy magick scathes past Balthier's raised arms, and he thinks his skin is scraped raw. His vision swims and he feels twisted inside out, but he shuts his eyes. He is vicious as he suppresses the panic. In the dark behind his eyelids, the ground steadies under his feet as he prepares Esunaga.<p>

The spell lifts the status effect, and the curative magick that follows and fills Balthier, pushing itself to the tips of his fingers as if they were hollow, is immediate. The glow of Curaja sifts still over Fran's hand when he glances to her, and she nods, her eyes tense.

Balthier looks up at Ultima's serene face and he dodges the sharp snap of the blades at her feet.

He sees Penelo whirl the battle pole above her head, crushing strikes slamming into Ultima's delicately raised arm. She gasps, falling back, and golden wings flutter to catch her balance.

Ultima dashes forward, tilting to spit Penelo upon her rotating blades, and Vaan is in front of her, his sword catching the attack and straining to push her back.

She spins, a ragged slash appearing in Vaan's side as he swings his sword up, slicing through her shoulder and sending glimmering blood into the air.

Balthier sees the glow of healing magick in Penelo's hand out of the corner of his eye as he sends dark shot ripping through Ultima's wings. She jerks, tilting to a side, and he steps forward, shooting even as she weaves to avoid the attacks.

She swings about, her ponderous skirt billowing out, and Balthier sees her face.

Ultima smiles, and she lifts a flat gold disc set with a glittering red shard.

The Mist boils, spirals and vortexes twisting the light and blocking his vision. It is the roar of holy magick that causes Balthier to throw himself to a side, and he feels the seething of its passage over his head.

Balthier blinks rapidly, and he thinks he sees distorted shapes, a figure hunched over as if in pain.

"Fran!" He reaches out to her.

"I am fine," she says, her voice strained. "I will behave myself."

Balthier loops her arm over his head, and he tugs them both out of the way of another flash of Redemption. "Never doubted it for a moment, partner."

There is a fallen pillar, and he manipulates them into the narrow hollow behind it.

He hears footsteps, and he looks up into Vaan's pale eyes.

"Are you two okay?"

Magick thuds into the stone of their shelter, and Vaan flinches, pushing Penelo down further to safety as he crouches.

"Fine," Balthier says dryly. His voice is level, he notes. "We only fight an enraged esper with the power of gods in her hands."

Vaan makes a face. "Is that—?"

"The nethicite? Oh, yes. It makes her faster and much stronger in her attacks."

There is another thump and roar of holy magick, and the pillar begins to crumble around the edges.

"I'll draw her attacks," Vaan says urgently. "Get it off her somehow. Break it, steal it, I don't know."

"Are you suicidal?" Balthier says sharply.

"Are you giving up?" Vaan's eyes are bright, challenging, in the gloom. He lays a hand on Penelo's shoulder and squeezes, and he jumps up and dashes away.

"Vaan!" Balthier curses, raising his gun against Ultima.

He can see Vaan, darting and weaving, leaping over spikes of magick, as he and Penelo circle the other way.

The nethicite glints, blood red, and Balthier sights down the Fomalhaut.

Ultima spins and looks down upon them, white of Holy magick gathering about her head, and Balthier's eyes widen.

There is shouting, and he sees Vaan, hanging in the air and sword raised above his head, before Ultima twists around again, and Redemption rips through the air and engulfs Vaan.

Healing magick chafes in Balthier's hands, and he rolls as he dodges Ultima's blades.

Vaan lies still, and Balthier sees splashes of red and the white of bone under his chest, where the muscle has been flayed from his body. Balthier looks at the wide eyes and the rivulets of blood that etch macabre tears, and he pushes the Arise into Vaan's body.

He watches the skin knit together, leaving red stains, and he wishes fervently.

"Come on, Vaan," he murmurs, "wake up." He runs his fingers over the grime on the man's face, down to the silent pulse at his throat.

There is a thump, and he glances up to see Penelo dance back, her battle pole a flurry of movement.

Balthier grits his teeth, and he cannot concentrate on the staring eyes under him.

"Who's giving up now?" he says, his hands pressing over the still chest. "I'd much rather you didn't leave me to do everything by myself, you know. Vaan."

Penelo jerks as she hits the wall to the side. Her moan is quiet as she slides down to her knees, and the pole clangs as it drops.

"Vaan," Balthier says, his voice tight over the thudding in his ears. "Wake up."

He can see glowing white from the corner of his eye, and his shoulders tense at the sense of power, carried through the Mist. His fists ball.

"Wake up." Balthier raises his hand and drives the side of his fist into Vaan's sternum. He does not feel the impact he sees shake Vaan's body. "_Wake up._"

Vaan jolts, and he hacks and retches.

His eyes are unfocussed, but he looks up at Balthier.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	20. That which is

20. **That**** which ****is**

Balthier/Vaan - post-canon

Disclaimers still apply.

Well, there you have it. My morbid, melodramatic AU take on WHEN ESPERS REBEL. Thank you to everyone for reading, for the friends I've made along the way. (Hugs, kisses, baked goods.)

* * *

><p>Balthier sits against the wall, his gun hot as it rests against his thigh.<p>

He blinks, and he can see Ultima's face, still, twisting as she scrapes at the shards of nethicite that embed within in her eyes upon its shatter under Balthier's shot. He sees the shake to Fran's legs as she pulls herself to stand, the clench of her teeth as the first shot flies wide, and the steadiness to her hand as she sends the second arrow through Ultima's eye. Penelo had leaned heavily against her pole as her dark magick scythed up from the ground, and Balthier thinks the grate of Vaan's breath was loud as he stood, staggered, and lunged.

The crest of Ultima's seal is golden, flashing as it spins, and Fran's weight is warm at his side.

There is a whistle in the air as Vaan brings the Durandal down, and Balthier closes his eyes against the light.

It is quiet for a moment, and then he hears the esper's laugh. It is soft and fades quickly, and Balthier hears the relief.

He glances at Fran, and he lets a smile curve his lips.

"Hm," she says simply, but she reaches out and taps her fist on his.

* * *

><p>Balthier looks up at the sky ahead. It is bright, and his hands rest loosely on the controls of the Strahl.<p>

He can hear the argument that continues long when Penelo tries to force the last drops of her only elixir down Vaan's throat, and it is clear that Vaan is losing.

A glint of metal catches his eye, and he lifts the disc in his hand. Sunlight reflects off its half-melted surface, and the moulded shapes cast watery shadows on the hollow in its centre.

Balthier sets it down, and it spins an unsteady turn before it subsides.

It lies still.

* * *

><p>It will take more than firm words, this time.<p>

The air is tense, and armed Imperials dot the square. Civilians glance toward the hidden faces, and snaps of hostility sweep over their faces, intermingled with the fear. Several Dalmascans glance up, toward the wreckage of Bahamut that Balthier knows tilts in the desert behind them.

Balthier watches Ashe place a hand upon Larsa's arm as they step toward the waiting podium.

He aches. The stretch of new skin and the rasp of magick depletion tug at him, but when he sees the mess of hair, burning white under the sun, he bites back the exhaustion and he reaches out to catch an arm.

* * *

><p>"Balthier," Vaan says.<p>

The skin is tense around his eyes and pale, but he smiles slowly.

The shouts are loud, suddenly, and Balthier's head rings. He hears yells of assassination, of demands of keeping still, and in the din, he thinks he hears Larsa's angry voice.

There are pounding footsteps accompanied by the clank of heavy armour, and he looks around to see Imperials, the sun blinding off their bared swords and plated bodies. They are looking at Vaan, he realizes.

Penelo darts by, sand-coloured hair whipping loose of her braids, and she snatches up Vaan's hand.

"Come on!"

Vaan skids a moment, his boots sending up puffs of fine dust, and then they are dashing away, shoving past Imperial soldiers who react too slowly to reach them.

Balthier kicks out at the back of an armoured knee, and the soldier crumples, toppling several others in the process. Amid the screams and choking dust, Balthier steps into the shadows lining the square.

He sees the waved hand, weathered gauntlet flashing, and he can barely hear the shout.

"I'll see you around, Balthier!"

Balthier watches the pale heads until they are lost in the crowd milling about the Royal City of Rabanastre.

* * *

><p>There are rumours of the return of Rabanastre's most accomplished hunter, the sky pirate who is unerringly heroic. The women swoon of his rare smile.<p>

Balthier thinks he looks ridiculous, with his belt bedecked with sky jewels and similar coloured baubles, a sword strapped to one hip, and a gun to the other.

He sets his weight on one leg, a hand absently scratching his nose, as he peers up at the hunts' board.

Balthier steps quietly, and he presses the heel of his gun into the small of Vaan's back. Vaan stiffens, hand drifting toward his sword, and Balthier leans forward until his lips nearly touch Vaan's ear.

He smells of sand and sun.

"You will come with me to stand trial," Balthier murmurs.

Balthier waits, and it is but a moment before Vaan laughs, a quiet exhalation accompanied by a dip of his head. "On what charges?" Vaan asks.

"I shall have to come up with something, hmm?" Balthier wonders if Vaan knows that he leans back. The heat radiating from the man's back matches the coil in his belly, and he smiles. "But I can assure you that the punishment will be most dire."

Vaan looks at him, out of the corner of his eye. It is sky-coloured, grey-blue, without a hint of red.

* * *

><p>End.<p>

P.S. There will be an epilogue because I would like there to be an epilogue.


	21. Epilogue: This sky

Epilogue:** This ****sky**

Balthier/Vaan - post-canon

Disclaimer still applies.

Much love to you guys.

* * *

><p>Vaan's ship is small, but she is fast, and they arrive a full night in advance.<p>

She sits on a wide bank overlooking the Tchita Uplands, and she is quiet around the narrow berth that folds up into her tail.

Balthier tucks an arm under his head as he lies on his side, and the warm ridge of Vaan's spine is pressed to his chest. He listens to the tap of rain over his head and the sound of Vaan's breath.

He frowns. "Can't sleep?"

It is quiet for a moment. "I guess."

"You do know that it is not inculpation that he would seek?"

"I know."

He falls silent, and Balthier tries again. "Vaan, if you do not wish to be here, I'm quite sure they will understand."

"I know. I do. Sorry."

Balthier sighs.

Vaan twists to look at him, and he offers Balthier a crooked smile. "It's okay."

"Stop that," Balthier says.

Vaan's skin is soft under his fingers, and the muscles are tense as he drags his hand down the plane of his belly. Balthier traces a ragged scar at his hipbone, and he flattens his lips to the column of Vaan's neck.

Vaan is quiet under his hand, but he arches to press himself into the touch. He exhales, long and strained, at the gentle tug of Balthier's knuckle sliding up his length.

It is slick and messy, and the oil Balthier pours over his hand drips down the ridges between his rings and pools between his legs. Vaan's mouth is open, and his sharp breaths slip over Balthier's lips as he pushes back into Balthier's thrusts.

He digs rough fingers into Balthier's scalp as his back curves, and Balthier sees when his eyes slide shut, lashes pale against his dusty skin, covering the sliver of grey.

* * *

><p>It is an official visit, and the fanfare is loud and long.<p>

The Uplands are damp from rain, and the boots of armoured guards turn the ground quickly to mud.

The speeches drone, and there is much talk of honour, duty, and love of country. Archadia especially seems to have spared no expense, and there is a flag, its crest bright red against the grey sky, lain over the empty sarcophagus.

There are lilies in the wreath, Balthier sees, the white ones that grow wild now, amongst the ruins of Landis. He thinks they are Larsa's doing.

When a Dalmascan captain, the scars on his face causing his whiskers to grow in clumped bristles, stands by the ceremonial paraphernalia and takes the place of an Archadian general, Vaan presses his fingers into the back of Balthier's wrist, and he glances back over his shoulder as he slips away, Penelo preceding him.

Balthier catches Fran's eye, and he tilts his head.

* * *

><p>The stone is squat and misshapen, barely more than an upright slab.<p>

It is in a quiet corner of the Uplands, sheltered by a cliff at its back and moulting trees at its side.

Vaan and Penelo stand side by side, looking down at the patch of flat earth, and Balthier steps around a clump of flowering weeds that have grown over it.

There are quiet footsteps, and he looks up to see Ashe approach, picking her way past upraised roots in her impractical official garb.

"Should you truly be sneaking away from the funeral of your own knight?" Balthier says.

Ashe's lips curve, but there is reluctance to it.

Larsa braces a hand against a tree as he steps over a flat, jagged boulder. "We will not be missed for some time. I believe even the pallbearers drift off as the good captain speaks. As well, my guards remember him, and they know where I go."

"Besides which," Ashe says, "it isn't him, over there."

She stands at the stone, now, and she looks down upon the grave. She bends down then, and traces her fingers over the deep scratches in the marker. They are angular and uneven, etched by a knife that dulled by the end.

A drop of water, left clinging by the rain, runs down the scrapes.

"Did you do this, Vaan?" Larsa says without lifting his eyes.

Balthier slants his head, and he reads the words.

"Here lies."

It breaks off, a blank where the name is to be.

"Yeah," Vaan says. He shifts his feet, and his eyes dart to Larsa and away again. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to write 'Gabranth', and I couldn't really write 'Basch'. He said it would be too dangerous. If his identity got out."

"It is safe now," Ashe says. "We will erect a fitting monument. We will remember him the way he deserves."

Larsa places his hand on the dark stone, and he shakes his head. "No," he says. "Please leave it."

* * *

><p>Balthier shifts the Strahl's wings, and he sees the copse that hides the grave when he glances down in the sky. Above him, Vaan's ship banks a wide circle, and the sun flickers off her hull.<p>

* * *

><p>End.<p> 


End file.
